HAMPDEN, Maine — Although he had landed his dream job with Hampden Public Safety almost a decade earlier, paramedic Joe Dunton couldn’t help feeling that there was something more he needed to be doing.
It hit him shortly after his 2013 baptism at the nondenominational Nealleys Corner Church in Hampden.
“Everything changed. I mean, I came to realize why I was here and I realized it’s not enough to acknowledge God, you have to be on board. I came to realize that I’m here to serve him and this is all part of that,” Dunton, 39, said of his decision to become a public safety chaplain.
“Once I made that connection I knew it was not OK for me to ignore that call. I absolutely felt compelled to make that happen,” said Dunton, who grew up in Hampden and worked in Farmington before he and his family moved back to the area in the early 1990s.
For Dunton, the road to becoming chaplain did not begin in the usual way. Most police and fire department chaplains are ordained clergy, which Dunton is not.
When Dunton was hired by Hampden, there were two department chaplains. But they moved on and the town began looking for a new chaplain two years ago.
“That was out there for awhile and there weren’t any responses, I remembered kind of feeling, for lack of a better term, bummed out about that,” Dunton said in an interview this week.
“And then I felt I had this idea that just wouldn’t go away,” he said. “I tried to push it out of my mind on several occasions. I had all the classic excuses, you know, ‘I don’t have time. I can’t afford to go back to school.’ You know, ‘I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.’”
So he brought the idea to one of his lieutenants, then to his chief and then to his pastor. All agreed it was a good idea.
The journey began online when Dunton earned a certificate in biblical studies from Liberty University. He now is pursuing a degree in biblical studies and theology from the same school.
A few weeks ago, Dunton completed the law enforcement chaplain program at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.
Given Dunton’s work experience, he understands better than many what his colleagues face on a daily basis.
“I’ve been doing the job just over 20 years now, so I understand some of the stressors. I understand what it’s like working in an emergency environment. I hope that will help me to relate to the different situations and hopefully help people,” he said.
Hampden Public Safety Director Joe Rogers thinks Dunton is ideal for his new post.
“We‘ve always felt that we wanted to have that resource available to us and this is the best that we could even hope for,” he said. “It’s someone that we know, it’s someone we feel comfortable with. Joe is a very caring person. He’s compassionate and I think he’s going to do a good job.”