Langworthy named Volunteer of the Year

Roger Langworthy has been named the Volunteer of the Year by the Minnesota Sheriff’s Association. He was presented with the award during the group’s state conference earlier this month in Alexandria.
Langworthy was nominated for the award by Dodge County Sheriff Scott Rose. Each of the 87 sheriffs in Minnesota has the opportunity to nominate a candidate for this award. The award is to recognize someone who volunteers their time and service to the Sheriff’s Department, Rose said.
Langworthy has been a chaplain with the Sheriff’s Department since 2017 and is currently the coordinator of eight chaplains in Dodge County.
The chaplains volunteer their time and serve on-call 24 hours a day to help officers in critical incidents across the county. Chaplains often assist the public during and after an incident and also have been a source of support, both emotionally and spiritually, for the first responders of the county. The chaplains receive extensive training before they are called to assist at the scene of an accident, suicide, or other critical event.
Dispatchers call out the chaplain who lives nearest to the incident and if that individual is not available, they go down the list until they find one who is able to respond at the time. The chaplains are located throughout the county and Langworthy said he is called especially when the incident is in the western part of the county as he lives in Dodge Center. A chaplain’s assistance is requested two or three times a month.
A life-long resident of Dodge County, Langworthy was called into the pastoral ministry in 1986 when he and his wife Melanie started Praise Fellowship Church in Dodge Center. Previously he had farmed in the Claremont area.