Dancing with the Chief

In 2009, the Chief of Police in Ocean City, Maryland, won the "Dancing with the Delmarva Stars" charity fundraising event, besting 12 other contestants.

If you look at the photo and think that the Chief looks sharp in his black outfit with the white necktie, you’ll be wrong. The gentleman is Bill Goschen, but the Chief is Bernadette DiPino, the woman on the left.

"Delmarva," in case you do not know, refers the peninsula on which the resort town of Ocean City is located. The three states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia share that peninsula.

Ocean City has a year-round population of just 7,200, but over the course of a year more than eight million tourists visit the town.

But Chief DiPino has recently taken on a task that is sure to be more challenging than either dancing in competition or being Chief of Ocean City. On January first of this year she took over as Chief of the Sarasota, Florida, police department. Sarasota is also a vacation destination, but it has a year-round population more than seven times greater than Ocean City. It’s a sprawling 25-square mile city.

Sarasota city officials have high hopes for Chief DiPino, an outsider hired to take over a department that in recent years has suffered from the fiscal squeeze and citizen complaints.

Chief DiPino is part of a family of police. Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all served, and her daughter is an officer in Maryland today. Five generations!