ACWORTH
POLICE DEPARTMENT
Celebrating 2 Outstanding Professionals BY WAYNE DENNARD
This month, we are celebrating Lt. Charles Ball’s 20-year anniversary with the Acworth Police Department, as well as his retirement. Lt. Ball began his career in the U.S. Army, where he was a sergeant over a gun section for field artillery divisions. While in the Army, he served in Korea, Germany and at Fort Benning. After his honorable discharge, Lt. Ball spent 12 years with the Rome Police Department, serving in several areas, including in the uniformed patrol division, as a field training officer and on the DUI task force. Since joining the Acworth Police Department, Lt. Ball has worked in nearly every division, including uniformed patrol — of which he is the commander — bike patrol and the Office of Professional Standards and Training. In the past two decades, Lt. Ball has played an integral role with our department. When he started his career with Acworth, the police department was much different than it is now. We have worked hard to ensure we have the highest standards of training, professionalism, service and transparency. While Lt. Ball led the Office of Professional Standards, our agency received state certification and has been recertified since then. As a result of many years of hard work and progress, our agency has been recognized by the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police as one of the best in the state. An interesting fact you might not know: Lt. Ball designed our police department’s logo. He is a talented photographer and has a knack for artistic design. Whenever we see the logo on our vehicles, shirts or items throughout our headquarters, we will be reminded of Lt. Ball, and when he retires, we will continue to see his “fingerprints” on nearly every aspect of our agency. Lt. Ball made his mark on me as well. When I first started my career as an officer, Lt. Ball was my field training officer. He taught me many important lessons, and I am grateful to him for his leadership and guidance and for working beside me and supporting my vision as I have served as your chief of police. I’m thankful that Lt. Ball will be able to hand over the uniformed patrol division to another outstanding police officer, Lt. Brian Hunt, who also has worked to build
Lt. Charles Ball
Lt. Brian Hunt
this department over the past 20 years. Lt. Hunt was promoted to lieutenant a few months ago, and, like Lt. Ball, he also has served in nearly every division in our department, including uniformed patrol, training and community affairs, and even in our detention center. During his tenure, Lt. Hunt has been selected by his peers as Officer of the Year three times. In 2015, he was the Cobb County Chamber of Commerce’s Public Safety Officer of the Year, and he received the lifesaving award for successfully performing CPR on an individual who was experiencing a heart attack. I know that Lt. Hunt’s experience, dedication and drive to provide the best possible service to the Acworth community will ensure he is an outstanding commander for our uniformed patrol division. It is difficult to express the level of gratitude and respect that I have for these two amazing professionals. They truly are the foundation upon which our department has been built, and I am so grateful for both of them.
Wayne Dennard has served as chief since 2012 and has lived in this community for more than 40 years.
AROUND ACWORTH | August 2022
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