The first woman to serve as a Sioux City Police Department officer has died.
Janell (Daws) Armstrong died last week.
She graduated from the Sioux City Police Academy in 1972, and began what would become a 25-year career as an officer, according to a social media post by Bishop Heelan Catholic High School, from where she graduated in 1960.
Armstrong first worked as an executive assistant, but sought a more active life during a time when she was a single mother.
She described not looking to be a pioneer, but just to land a position where she felt she could do well. She described getting some initial pushback in the 1970s from male officers.
Armstrong worked in several police roles.
She married policeman Paul Armstrong, and her father and a grandfather had also been a policeman, the Heelan post said.
