First female police officers in Oklahoma City proved they could do the job

Sitting in an Oklahoma City restaurant earlier this month, three women laughed as they reminisced about their rough and tumble days working for the Oklahoma City Police Department.

Sherry Garcia, Julie Smith and Gladys Loflin are three of the five women who were hired in December 1972 as Oklahoma City's first female police officers.

The other two women were Shirley Conner, of Tuttle, who was too ill to join them that day, and Norma Adams, of Oklahoma City, who died in December.

“We all get together and sometimes you may not think that we are friends — because we can argue over whether the sun is shining or not — but the point of it is that we are,” Smith said. “It is because of the shared experience and we were it.