In March Alex Morgan will celebrate her 13 year anniversary as a Crenshaw County 911 dispatcher.

Morgan said it was divine intervention that led her to her career in emergency response, and there is no place she would rather be.

“It’s kind of funny; I was in college and I realized that school was not for me and I knew that I wanted to find a job where I could help others,” Morgan said. “One day I was looking at the Luverne Journal at the job listings and I noticed that the 911 center had a job listing. I had no clue what it entailed but I applied anyways. [Dispatch] ended up being the perfect match for what I wanted to do.”

Fellow Crenshaw County Dispatcher Melanie Williams said the department as well as Crenshaw County residents can always count on Morgan to serve them well.

“Alex has been a great asset to this agency and all the agencies we work with for many years,” Williams said. “She is a strong and dependable dispatcher the citizens of Crenshaw County can rely on.”

Morgan said helping her community one call at a time and knowing that she has made a difference in someone else’s most frustrating or difficult day is her favorite part of being a dispatcher.

While knowing the positive impact she has on her community provides for a certain level of satisfaction, Morgan acknowledged that her career can sometimes take an emotional toll.

“The hardest part of this job is a tie,” Morgan said. “It would have to be between not getting closure from the calls I was dealing with, or trying to blame myself for things ending badly although we handle things the the best we can with the training we have.”

Morgan said that one thing that makes a great dispatcher is being able to diffuse a conversation in order to get the necessary information to respond to a crisis. 

“We don’t always have your location spot on when someone says ‘just get someone here now’,” Morgan said. “We need for them to be able to provide their location and for them to answer our questions. People are sometimes frustrated or upset, but our questions are very important and they help determine who we send and how the other first responders respond.” 

She stressed that her job goes far beyond just answering phones and assured the citizens of Crenshaw County that she and her fellow dispatchers are continuously learning new technology and better ways to respond in emergency situations to better serve them.