Creative Editing
Chapter 4
Exercise 8
8. Edit this story.
trooper
RICHMOND, VA. -- (AP) -- The star of Virginia's court ordered campaign to recruit women state troopers has been fired for "insubordination" after refusing a short notice, out of town assignment she claims gave her no chance to find a babysitter.
The state's first woman trooper, Cheryl Petska, was notified at 4 p.m. Friday that she would be dismissed at midnight for "insubordination" -- her refusal to accept a two week tuor of duty in the strike troubled Virgininia coalfields.
Petska, 31, claims she was give only 48hours notice of the assignment at the CONSUL, Inc. mines and couldn't accept it because she was unable to find a babysitter for her two daughters, Tracy 10 and shannon 5.
Her husband, Mark, works as an undercover trooper for the Highway Patrol and was scheduled to be away on assignment at the same time. The Petska's live in Frdericksburg, Va.
"They told me one Friday to be at the coalfields on Monday," Petska said. "I thought the short notice was unjustified."
"My kids are in school," she said. "In the summer I can send them to my mothers, but that's not possible now."
"Everybody recognizes an emergency," her attorney, Joesph Duvall, said. But this was no emergency; this was sexy discrimination."
"TRhe coal strikes have been going on for years, and as I understand it, some divisions already have their work schedules planned thru December."
The Jonestown coal fields, site of occasional strike related violence, are an 8-hour, 400 mile drive from Cheryls home," Duvall said.
Duvall said next week he would file a request for a state police arbitration hearing of the case. If Petska is not reinstated, he said, they will take the matter to court.
Petska joined the state police in Oct. 1988. She made 500 arrests in her first year on the job, and was filmed recently in a state police promotional film that may air soon.
Only eight of the 1000 Virginia state troopers are woman.
Petska worked special coalfield duty during the Pitston Coal Company strike two years ago and said she was given almost two weeks notice then.
"It makes you a little resentful when you go out there and you do a goood job and risk you life just like everybody else. And they still won't accept you," she said.
"They want women in here, but noathing has been done to help women get thru this."
Petska was hired when the Virginia Supream Court forced the highway patrol to begin hiring women in 1988. She was one of several women who had filed a class action suit against the highway patrol, charging it with sex discrimination.
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