Trooper Hokenstad named Douglas County trooper of the year

Douglas County drivers gain more than a plaque when Trooper Hokenstad is honored: her work as a Drug Recognition Expert, standardized field sobriety testing instructor and cadet mentor helps expand the Colorado State Patrol’s ability to spot impaired drivers before they cause a crash.

Hokenstad received the Cherry Creek Valley Rotary’s Douglas County Trooper of the Year award, a civic-service honor that puts her work in front of the community she helps protect. The recognition reflected more than one assignment. It pointed to a trooper whose daily duties support DUI enforcement, instruction at the Colorado State Patrol Academy and hands-on mentoring of new cadets headed into roadside enforcement across the metro area.

The Colorado State Patrol said its annual awards are peer-nominated and are meant to recognize outstanding work performance, initiative, leadership, character and integrity. Those qualities fit the Patrol’s core values of Honor, Duty and Respect, and they also line up with the agency’s larger mission to protect life, peace and property throughout Colorado. Major Afsoon Ansari and Colonel Matthew C. Packard oversee an organization that treats those awards as part of its internal standard for public service, not just ceremonial praise.

For Douglas County, the work matters because the county sits inside CSP District 1: Metro, which also includes Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Jefferson and Denver counties. The CSP Castle Rock Troop Office serves Douglas County from within that district, making local traffic safety and DUI enforcement a daily public-safety issue rather than a distant administrative one. Hokenstad’s role in detection and instruction helps strengthen that local enforcement capacity.

The Patrol says DUI enforcement remains a top priority because crashes involving alcohol or drugs have twice the injuries and deaths of crashes that do not involve alcohol or drugs. That is why cadets receive 24 hours of DUI-related training during basic academy instruction at the Colorado State Patrol Training Academy, located at 15055 South Golden Road in Golden. The Basic Academy is CALEA-accredited, and the Patrol says its training emphasizes character, integrity, knowledge, judgment, honor, loyalty and courtesy.

Hokenstad’s award also underscored how the Patrol builds its future force. By training cadets and serving as an instructor, she is helping shape the next generation of troopers who will work Castle Rock, Douglas County and the rest of District 1. The recognition from Cherry Creek Valley Rotary tied that law-enforcement work to civic service, and to the practical goal of preventing impaired-driving deaths before they happen.