Waurika’s latest addition to the police department is a young man who was born in Duncan, Oklahoma in 1987. Duncan has been Matt Peck’s home all of his life, except for the six months his family lived in Guymon because of his dad’s promotion as an Oklahoma Highway Patrol Officer. Afterwards his family moved back to Duncan.
Officer Matt Peck comes from a family of law enforcement. Not only is his father, Roger Peck, an OHP officer, his brother Andrew is an officer for Chickasha PD.
Along with his commitment to law enforcement, Matt has a fondness for military life. He joined the Army Reserves on August 5, 2004, a week before he started his senior year of high school in Duncan. During that year he drilled with his unit and went to basic training after graduation.
In 2008 Matt was deployed to Baghdad, Iraq conducting Route Clearance operations. After a year’s tour of duty he returned home to work for the Cotton County Sheriff’s Department. After a year and a half he transferred to Stephens County Sheriff’s Department where he served for five years.
In 2012 Matt transferred from the Army Reserves to the Oklahoma National Guard. While serving in the National Guard he was deployed to Lviv, Ukraine as a part of a NATO mission. Matt serves as a Staff Sergeant of a nine-soldier squad. He is 1st Squad Leader and regularly fills in as the Platoon Sergeant of 1st Platoon, Alpha Company of the 545 Brigade Engineer Battalion. He holds a dual MOS as a Combat Engineer and Horizontal Engineer. When deployed he finds himself embedded with the infantry as a subject matter expert in mobility and dealing with obstacles that may come across their path.
While serving in Ukraine he was privileged to meet soldiers and civilians and learning about their culture. He has fond memories of the 7 months he spent helping train soldiers in defense military tactics, explosives and locating mines.
Matt says Lviv is a beautiful part of Ukraine. It was an experience of a life time, enjoying their food, coffee—they consume lots of coffee, and learning to navigate through four feet of snow at -8 degrees.
During Easter he and his fellow staff members were honored to celebrate the resurrection at an old church that had been damaged by invaders in years gone by.
Lviv has an interesting past. This appealed to Matt’s interest in WWII history.
Matt has many stories about his time in Ukraine. (If you see him out and about ask him about Bubble Waffles).
He enjoyed Ukraine so much that he and his fiancé, MiKayla may spend part of their honeymoon there. Their plan is to marry in May, 2020. The two have known each other for several years and are looking forward to spending many fulfilling years together.
As much as he enjoys military life, he is just as happy to be back in the states wearing a police uniform. He’s enjoying his time in Waurika. He likes community policing, helping others and keeping the peace.
He does have a personal life. Along with a wonderful fiancé, he has a six-year old son named Stetson Roger. He loves to hunt and fish. He especially loves duck hunting. He loves Mexican food as well as seafood. His favorite color is blue. Like most police officers, he has a few pet peeves.
His biggest pet peeve is parents who threaten their children with the police taking them to jail if they don’t behave. He believes it teaches children to be afraid of officers.
The other pet peeve involves children as well. Children who are not properly buckled with a seat-belt while riding in a car that is.
Other than that, he is very approachable and doesn’t mind answering law-enforcement related questions. He doesn’t even mind if someone takes time to say hello.
