GOSHEN COUNTY—Herb and Megin Irons have been through thick and thin in their 11 years together.

What started as two people meeting through mutual friends in a small town around the time of Megin’s freshman year and Herb’s senior year of 2008-2009, they have gone through all of the normal trials of the teenage years, the struggle of Herb’s time away to go through different trainings for the position he holds with the Goshen County Sheriff’s Office, and make differing schedules work through adulthood.

Herb said they first really met at the lake and started dating the following March.

“We had been hanging out for a few months, maybe a year before, just as friends,” Megin said.

“I got into law enforcement because of my dad. At that point he had done right at 15 years at the sheriff’s office for patrol. He did K-9, he was a firearms instructor, he seemed really happy. It seemed like law enforcement was fulfilling for him and it seemed like he was making a difference. He enjoyed going to work every day,” Herb said. His father retired after over twenty years of service.

At the time Herb went through the  steps to begin his career in law enforcement he and Megin were living together and would later become engaged and get married.

Soon after going through testing to get hired at the sheriff’s office, Herb was set to complete detention officer basic training. 

“I thought I was not going to make it. When he went for DOB basic like just the detention officer, I was like ‘eight weeks? We’ve never been apart for more than like three days.’’

Herb said that he would come home every chance he got, but they did a lot of correspondence by talking on the phone and texting. 

“It was nice he would sometimes pretend like he wasn’t coming home on the weekend and then he would show up, always. He always showed up every weekend,” Megin said. 

In 2015, they went on a trip to Texas where Herb proposed to Megin on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Around the same time Herb started going into the field of patrol work after a couple of years in the detention center.

“It seems like detention takes up a lot less of your off-time,” Herb said. “Around that time I was moved to patrol and I got to transfer from the detention center to patrol and started doing patrol work, got through my FTO’ing (field training officer), then went through a 12-week POB (patrol officer basic) I think that was easier to get through than DOB just because she was used to ‘it’s not so bad.’”

“I had already experienced that for eight weeks, ‘I can do 12, I guess.’ So it wasn’t that bad,” Megin said.

The Iron’s agreed that he was ahead of the game when it came to FTO because he grew up in the area and already knew the roads. 

When Herb started going through the K-9 training in Casper he had to give up every weekend that he had off from his regular schedule to attend classes for several months.

“It was rough,” Megin said. “But it was so worth it because Si is our baby.”

After finishing all of the K-9 training, the Iron’s were married in 2017.

Megin is currently working as a therapist with preschool kids in the area and is going through the University of Alaska to get her degree. She would like to be able to get the opportunity to help kids around the world.

“He has been a great motivator for me for school and with work. It’s good, I think, always being there to motivate each other,” Megin said.

As a family that has experienced a lot of time apart, they have figured out a way to make it work when it comes to differing schedules. As an officer there is always a chance of a shift change and each change requires family flexibility.

“In law enforcement in general it’s 24/7/365 rotating schedules.  You’re working Christmas, your working Thanksgiving, any holiday,” Herb said.

He said that they just have to make different things work when it comes to the holidays since he could end up with any shift.

“It’s just me trying to get my schedule down to make everyone happy or follow through with plans,” Herb said. When it comes to the different schedules they are sometimes just seeing each other in passing, but they try to make the most of the time they have together. 

While they aren’t always able to talk about all of the aspects of their jobs, they still know they have each other.

They spend a lot of time spending time in the mountains camping.

“We like to camp, hunt, fish, outdoor anything,” Herb said. “It’s kind of how I decompress, how she decompresses.”

Megin said that they are always trying to go on adventures.

“Taking time. The biggest thing, I think, that makes all of the different schedules work and not a lot of time together is calls – a lot of phone calls. And when we do have days off together, even if it’s just sitting at the house we take the time for each other,” “We just like taking dates, and never stop dating each other.”

“I think that around this area we we’re backed up a lot more, than you would see on the East Coast,” Herb said. “I think our community here actually backs up law enforcement a lot more than you would see if you go to other larger police agencies in coastal regions.”

Herb said he doesn’t worry as much as he would in other places that have cops killed every day.

“I mean, it’s pretty scary,” Megin said “But I know that he’s great at his officer safety and he knows what he’s supposed to be doing, where he’s supposed to be doing it at, and he’s great at what he does.”