When Nancy Franks McCue started as a road patrol officer in North Miami, supervisors issued her a service weapon and a uniform skirt.

''I pointed out if I was handling an accident or chasing a burglar over a fence, it might not be appropriate,'' said McCue, the department's first female officer when she joined the ranks in February 1974.

``In the beginning, the hardest part was making sure the men I worked with understood I wasn't going to be a liability. I learned a long time ago you didn't have to be mannish to do the job.''

McCue, of Deerfield Beach, marked a series of firsts before retiring from the department in 2000: the first female sergeant, lieutenant and commander.

But her ''firsts'' started at Hialeah High School, as the school paper's first female Boys' Sports Editor.

And in 1962, she became her school's first Silver Knight winner.

''It inspires you the rest of your life,'' she said of winning the award for journalism. ``I've always been active and involved. It's the whole spirit of the Silver Knight. It's something you're always proud of.''

For 50 years, The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald have presented the Silver Knight awards to high school luminaries in honor of their community service and academic excellence.

McCue's family was in the audience the night she accepted the award. Even her brother, Paul, who had been drafted by the Chicago Cubs the year before, was in attendance after getting sent home to recover from an injury.

''I was so totally in shock,'' she said of her winning. ``The requirements seemed so insurmountable.''

She did community service collecting food and holiday gifts for the underprivileged and working on literacy projects with first and second graders, but she also had to submit articles to be judged.

After high school, McCue won the Sigma Delta Chi scholarship to the University of Miami, where she took classes but didn't graduate.

During college, she started working for The Miami Herald's classified department, the only opening she could get at the paper, while writing for UM's Hurricane.

She took a break from working while she had her children, a daughter and three sons.

THE LOCAL BEAT

Looking to go back to work, she contacted Pat Murphy, the editor of the Coral Gables Times Guide and a liaison for the Silver Knights.

Murphy hired McCue to cover local news and zoning issues and she also began writing for the North Dade Journal.

By this time her first husband was serving his third tour in Vietnam. She kept her Silver Knight statue close by at all times.

''For years when I was home with my babies I kept [the trophy] by my bed for protection if I needed it,'' she said.

All the while, she knew she wanted to be a police officer. But McCue, 5-feet-5, didn't meet the height requirement to join.

A lawsuit in the early '70s forced departments to drop the height requirement, and she signed up.

The transition from journalism to police work was a logical one, she said.

''When you do investigative reporting it's no different than an officer writing a report, you're just more involved in resolving the problem than writing about it,'' she said. ``You see people at their absolute worst as victims or offenders. To me it was very rewarding. I just loved doing the job. I worked years on the midnight shift, worked weekends, worked holidays.''

Nancy and her husband, Ed McCue, an officer with Miami-Dade police, worked opposite shifts so one of them could be with the kids. They've been together 35 years.

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