Texhoma police seek full-time officer, require city residency and CLEET certification

Texhoma Police Department posted a full-time officer opening on June 24 and set two unusually firm conditions: applicants must be CLEET certified and live within the city limits. In a town of 856 people, the hiring push points to a direct public-safety need, not just a routine vacancy.

The notice says Texhoma wants an officer who is community oriented and comfortable working in a small-town rural environment. That description fits a department that has to cover patrol, answer calls, and enforce traffic laws with limited staffing and without the layers of specialization found in larger city agencies. The posting remains active for 30 days unless the hiring agency extends it, which would normally carry the search into late July.

Texhoma sits in Texas County, where public-service coverage is already stretched across a wide rural area. The county had 21,384 residents at the 2020 census and an estimated 20,322 on July 1, 2025. Those numbers matter in a place like Texhoma because a single full-time officer can make the difference between steady local coverage and longer response times when calls stack up.

Public directory information lists Tristan Hall as chief of police and places the department at 221 Main St. in Texhoma, with the non-emergency number (580) 423-7771. The city’s own history says Texhoma was named for its location on the Oklahoma-Texas state line, and the town describes itself as a border community with Texas-side and Oklahoma-side services. That geography adds pressure to local policing, since nearby services and traffic do not stop neatly at the state line.

The department’s pay also suggests a small agency trying to compete for officers with modest resources. An older public job listing showed a starting salary of $38,000 for uncertified applicants and $40,000 for certified applicants, plus a $2,000 hiring incentive. Even with certification already required in the current notice, those figures show the pay scale facing a region where departments often have to recruit from a limited pool of officers willing to work small-town calls, traffic enforcement, and routine patrol in one assignment.

Texhoma’s public website also says the Texhoma Volunteer Fire Department serves both Texas and Oklahoma residents, underscoring how much the border town depends on local public-safety institutions. For a community of this size, the search for one full-time officer is a staffing decision with immediate consequences for coverage, visibility, and the town’s ability to keep a steady police presence on both sides of the line.