WENTZVILLE • When Lisa Harrison was in second grade in Potosi, her teacher asked the class to draw a picture of what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Harrison drew a picture of a police officer, and her classmates laughed at her.

"Girls aren't police officers!" they told her.

Now that girl is Wentzville's police chief. Harrison, 40, started work last week, replacing Robert Noonan, who retired. She is the first female police chief in St. Charles County and is one of only two in the St. Louis area, joining Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Police Chief Regina Hays, according to law enforcement officials.

"We're just thrilled to have her," Wentzville Mayor Paul Lambi said of Harrison. He noted the city had 72 applicants.

"We went out searching for the best candidate for the job, and the candidate happened to be a woman," Lambi said.

He said he was impressed that on her third day on the job last week, she took command of a scene at a Wentzville hotel where a man apparently killed himself after shooting at police.

"She was very calm, very professional," Lambi said. "She took charge of the situation very well."

As simple as it may sound, Harrison says, she likes police work because she gets to help others.

"You get to do the right thing. Bad people go to jail, good people function in society. It's serving the community at large."

Harrison, the daughter of an administrator and a math teacher for Potosi schools, received an associate's degree in education from Mineral Area College in Park Hills. But instead of going into the classroom, she decided to enter the Marine Corps. For two years, she served as a military police officer. She didn't particularly like the job, because most of it was spent guarding a military base gate, but did enjoy other aspects of police work.

She left the military and got out of police work altogether, working jobs managing shoe stores in Texas and Florida with her husband at the time.

"I had jobs to pay the bills, but it wasn't something I wanted to do my whole life," she said.

She then helped manage security at a gated community in Florida and in 1999, she applied for a job at the Boynton Beach, Fla., police department.

Harrison rose through the ranks at Boynton Beach, becoming a lieutenant and assistant to the chief and eventually a district commander. She also taught classes and holds advanced certification in several areas like defense tactics, vehicle operations and firearms. She holds a bachelor's degree in public administration and a master's in organizational leadership.

Boynton Beach Police Lt. Kelly Harris worked with Harrison for 12 years and considers her a friend but also an effective administrator.

"She's not afraid to make sure everyone knows what she's all about," said Harris. "She's not a fake person. You know where she's coming from. She's not afraid to share her ideas and opinions."

Boynton Beach Sgt. Mike Johnson said Harrison was well-respected, set high standards for her officers and would support them to get what they needed.

"She expected that people would always do the right thing," Johnson said. "There was no compromise on integrity."

Boynton Beach, an hour north of Miami, is similar in geographic size to Wentzville, but its population, crime rate, and police force is three times as large.

Her short-term goal is to sit down with Wentzville officers and administrators and find out what they're doing right and what they need to improve. Not knowing anybody is a bit nerve-wracking, but it's also a positive thing, she said.

"I don't have any preconceived notions," she said. "No favoritism, because I don't know anybody."

Her mother and sister still live in Potosi, and she is closer to her fiancé, who has homes in Potosi and Lake of the Ozarks. The two knew each other in high school and they reconnected on Facebook. A long-distance relationship blossomed, and she looks forward to settling down with him here, though no firm wedding plans are in the works. She took a pay cut of more than $23,000 for the Wentzville job, making $88,000 a year here.

She likes the hometown feel of Wentzville and the values that come with that — something she said that seemed lacking in Florida because so many people came from different places.

As for what Harrison's grade school classmates said? The fact that she's a female police officer hasn't mattered, she says — she's simply Chief Harrison now.

"I've got the same education and training as everyone else in my position," she said.