Fort Chiswell grads join Virginia State Police

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Two Fort Chiswell High School graduates with family roots in Wytheville’s Division Four State Police Office are taking their new law enforcement skills to Brunswick County.
D. Duane Dunford, 26, and Adam Charles Svard, 22, both of Max Meadows, graduated Thursday from the Virginia State Police’s 114th Trooper Basic Session – a 35-week training program for prospective state troopers.
According to a VSP press release, the trooper academy gave the 59 graduates “more than 1,300 hours of instruction in more than 100 different subjects, including crime scene investigation, survival Spanish, judicial procedures, defensive tactics, cultural diversity and firearms.”
“It was overwhelming at first,” Svard said. “It was tough.”
Svard, whose birthday Monday coincided with his first day of work as a trooper, is the son of longtime VSP Senior Special Agent T.S. Svard.
The elder Svard has worked out of the Wytheville office since 1985 and overall has 40 years of state police experience.
“It’s a great career,” T.S. Svard said.
Dunford’s father, Dennis Dunford, has worked in maintenance at the Division Four office for the past few years. Duane Dunford said his father encouraged him to apply for the trooper position after getting to know several of the local officers.
“He was a big part of me doing it,” Duane Dunford said.
Duane Dunford is the son of Belisa Dunford.
Both Adam Svard and Duane Dunford said their first day on the job Monday had gone smoothly. All new troopers spend at least six weeks working with a field training officer to start their first assignment.
Although T.S. Svard said he’s proud that his son also has decided on a career in law enforcement, he said he never pushed him to follow in his footsteps.
T.S. Svard credited his wife, Susan, with instilling in their son the moral values needed to be a police officer.
“This is something you got to want to do,” he said. “You can’t be pushed into it.”
While the elder Svard said he only saw his son’s interest in the state police strongly develop toward the tail end of his high school days, Adam Svard said he has long been intrigued by police work.
“It’s just something I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid,” he said.
With their age difference, Duane Dunford said he and Adam Svard weren’t close growing up, but he added that it’s nice to have a familiar face in Brunswick County as the two embark on their new careers.
T.S. Svard, who worked with most of the new troopers in a part of their pre-academy training, said the young men radiated confidence at last week’s graduation ceremony.
“A bunch of boys went in and they came out men,” he said. “It was a heck of a transformation.”
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .