Kip Shuter stands with former police chiefs Craig Allebach and Steve Foster and current chief Scott Whitaker.
Pictured, from left, Steve Foster, Craig Allebach, Kip Shuter, Scott Whitaker.

WARSAW — People began to trickle in the moment Warsaw Police Department’s doors opened for officer Kip Shuter’s retirement party Friday afternoon. Over the next hours, the room would ring with cheerful conversation, jokes, laughs and yes, even a few tears.

Shuter’s last day will be Sept. 10. He has served the WPD for 31 years — 29 of those years as an officer. He worked his way through the department, serving where he could including Traffic Commission and Traffic Investigation. Shuter spent 22 years serving on the commission and held the administrator position of the commission for 18 of the 22 years. According to Mayor Joe Thallemer, Shuter provided a detailed and focus demeanor to the department, saying, “every organization needed a guy like (Shuter).”

After 31 years though, it is no easy task to leave the department for Shuter. Shuter stated, “It is difficult. I’m going to miss the people. I really like working the people. This is a people job; you have to be able to talk to people, communicate with people.”

But despite the difficulty, the room was packed with people who supported Shuter including his brother who recently lost his wife, moving Shuter to tears as he accepted his plaque of recognition for 31 years of service. “It’s been a privilege to work with the officers of Warsaw Police Department and the officials of the City of Warsaw and for the people I’ve had to work with, the civilians, the calls I’ve responded to and with the traffic commission and traffic investigation, hopefully I’ve been a comfort to them to be able to help them through bad situations,” said Shuter.

However, with the retirment, Shuter leaves behind a world of “pain and the sorrow that police officers see every day from the different kind of calls they have to respond to.”

Shuter transitions into a new line of work — or rather an old one — as the new Technology Director at Grace College. He will be returning to an old love of his in audio. Shuter originally went to college to major in Music while working as a student for Grace College’s audio department. While attending Grace though, he switched to Journalism where he discovered his desire to make a difference and joined WPD in the traffic division while at Grace.

However, Shuter found his way back into audio 20 years ago, picking up a part-time audio job at Grace. He hopes his years of service to Warsaw have been presenting a “good cop so (the people of Warsaw) don’t get a bad impression of police because that’s not what it’s about, that’s what it’s not about at all.”

WPD Police Chief hands Kip Shuter a plaque in recognition of 31 years of service to WPD at Shuter’s retirement party.