She busted the guy who gave her her first kiss. She sued the county for pay discrimination. She used to drag race cars on Main Street in the wee hours of the morning. Loni Payne says she always was something of a rebel and rabble rouser --or "rebel rouser," as she puts it.
This month, Payne will retire as the highest-ranking woman ever in the Anoka County Sheriff's Office, a trailblazer who left admiring colleagues and disgruntled criminals alike shaking their heads.
Payne, 61, is chief deputy for the county, a sexual-assault investigator who has risen through the ranks during her 26 years with the office.
Her superiors and fellow deputies alike saw something special in the woman who used to drag race on Main Street in Lino Lakes as a teenager and wanted to become a cop so she could drive fast legally.
"Loni has been a mentor and an inspiration to newcomers and veterans of this department," said new Sheriff James Stuart.
"She's smart, courageous, fearless."
Payne grew up in Lino Lakes, worked for Control Data in Arden Hills and then moved with one of the company's divisions to Silicon Valley.
But she wanted to be a police officer. In California, she met her future husband, Gary, who was returning from a tour in Vietnam. They married in 1971, and she went back to school to study law enforcement.