Two solemn firsts mark memorial service

On a granite Nevada-shaped sculpture, two names were unveiled Thursday on the Peace Officers Memorial.

Each has the sad distinction of being a "first."

In 2007, Paiute Tribal Police officer Adam Joseph Menuez of Fallon became the first tribal officer killed in the line of duty in Nevada, and Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Kara Mary Kelly-Borgognone became the first female officer in the state of Nevada killed in the line of duty.

"The fact that they are both first is significant to the state of Nevada," said Gov. Jim Gibbons, who spoke during the Peace Officers Memorial, honoring Nevada law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. "When you put the uniform on every day, you do not choose to give your life, but you know in your heart that that might very well be what you have to do.

"It might very well be the day that you commit yourself to giving everything you have, including your life, to the protection of innocent people in our society."

A U.S. Army veteran who served a tour in Iraq and helped clear the wreckage and human remains from the Pentagon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Menuez returned to his hometown in February 2006 to be a tribal officer.

Just five months into the job, he was responding to a medical emergency on the Stillwater Reservation last July 4 when he lost control of his patrol car and struck a guardrail. The vehicle overturned and became submerged in an irrigation canal. Menuez was taken to Fallon Churchill Banner Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"It's not fun to have the police chaplain show up at your door at 8 a.m. on the Fourth of July," said Menuez' stepfather, Stephan Weber.

It was the second time Menuez' mother, Carol Weber, was told one of her four children had died.

In 2004, at Christmastime, Carol lost her daughter Denise to a seizure.

"I thought, 'why do I have to go through this again?'" Carol Weber said.

Thursday was a first for Carol and Stephan Weber as well.

It was the first time the Reno couple had ever attended the memorial that Menuez hadn't had a chance to take part in before his death.

"It was beautiful. Very touching. Respectful," Carol said as the May sun glanced off the memorial that now carries her son's name.

Kara Mary Kelly-Borgognone was a softball star at her high school in Fallon and attended Columbia College in Missouri on a softball scholarship.

In 2006, Borgognone escaped death when she shot and killed a convicted felon after he grabbed her service weapon during a struggle at the Reno parole and probation office. She served for eight years as a state parole and probation officer.

She'd been a trooper for two years when, on Feb. 25, 2008, the married mother responded to a report of a possible bomb at a Spanish Springs gas station and her patrol vehicle was T-boned in the intersection. Borgognone remained on life support for three days so that her organs could be harvested.

NHP Chief Christopher Perry said Borgognone's final act of giving was typical of her character.

"Kara was an excellent individual ... Colleagues and supervisors all described her as fearless. She was an individual who would arrive to back you up to assist you in any way she could," he said.

Borgognone's husband Dirk, accompanied at the ceremony by his 3-year-old daughter, Ashlyn, and 13-year-old stepdaughter, said the support he felt from the crowd helped.

From the first time he laid eyes on his wife, he thought she was beautiful. He was surprised to learn she was a police officer.

He told a secret Thursday that he said his bride of five years probably wouldn't want people to know. After all, his wife portrayed herself with a professional, hardened exterior.

"She was a softie," Dirk said, his tear-filled eyes hidden behind sunglasses. "She would cry at movies. She just had a big heart."