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Sylva-Webster graduate is new head of district 5 Highway Patrol office
By Lynn Hotaling
Sylva native Curt Casey is the new head of the N.C. Highway Patrol district office in Clyde.
Casey, a 1973 Sylva-Webster High School graduate and member of the Golden Eagles’ 1972 state championship football team, is no stranger to that office. He began his state patrol career as a trooper in Haywood County, a post he held from August 1980 until January 1998.
Casey said he was always interested in law enforcement and decided to pursue a career with the Highway Patrol while he was a student at Western Carolina University. Tommy Cheek, then an assistant coach at S-W, was doing graduate work at WCU and had applied to the patrol and encouraged Casey to apply too.
After 17 years as a trooper, Casey was promoted to sergeant and moved to the Asheville office. Eight years later, in December 2006, another promotion made him a 1st sergeant, and he moved to Rockingham in Richmond County.
Casey’s return to Haywood County was a lateral transfer he said.
“I applied for the job because I wanted to come back home,” he said.
Casey’s been back about a month now, and he says he’s seen a lot of the people he worked with during his previous stint there.
“I look forward to working here and serving the people of Jackson and Haywood counties,” Casey said.
As 1st sergeant, Casey directs N.C. Highway Patrol operations for Patrol Troop G, District 5, which comprises Jackson and Haywood.
The move back to the mountains also gives him more of an opportunity to see family members, he said. His mother, Minnie Casey, lives in Sylva as does one of his sisters, Mary Sue Casey, a retired Smoky Mountain High School math teacher. Another sister, Audrey Casey, lives in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Curt Casey is also the son of the late Lyndon Casey, who died in 1999.
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