APD records clerk Marilyn Bailey in 1973.

Forty years ago, Marilyn Bailey was fresh out of Angelo State University with a degree in drama when her car caught fire. She was fine, but the car burned to its wheels. Then a $600 insurance check arrived in the mail. She was 21 and she "wanted to do something significant," she said. So she bought a ticket to Alaska.

Two weeks after she got here, an employment agency sent her to the Anchorage Police Department for a job as a records clerk. She had no idea she was on her way to becoming a trailblazer.

Back then, in the early '70s, APD still operated like the police department in a black-and-white movie. Women, in their uniform pencil-skirts, worked in the office, typing reports written by patrolmen. For three years, Bailey typed away. Reading about all those police cases, she got a good idea of what officers did out on the streets.

"I just thought, 'I could do that,' " she said.

She and other female records clerks were already being asked to do things outside of the secretarial scope. They searched female prisoners and went to the hospital to take statements from rape victims. Some of them, including Bailey, were sent undercover to apply for jobs at massage parlors. Afterwards, they wrote reports that led to prosecutions. Kind of like police work, except records clerks made less than half a patrolman's salary.

In 1973, a patrolman position opened up and Bailey applied. A captain brought the application back to her.

"He said, 'See, Marilyn, the position is patrolMAN.' "

She went back to typing. Then APD leadership went to a conference Outside where there was a lot of discussion about lawsuits brought by women who wanted to be police, she said. They decided to hire some women as detectives, but they didn't think the public was ready for women on patrol. Bailey applied. She passed the physical fitness exam and the polygraph. But she wasn't hired because she was single, she said she was told.

"Married women were seen as more stable."

Then in 1975, the department decided to hire its first class of women to work on patrol. Bailey finally got her shot. She was hired in May, one of three women to go to the academy. If she graduated, she would be issued a uniform (with pants), a car and a gun. But the academy wasn't until September, so they assigned her to the drug unit in the meantime. When she got there, the sergeant in charge said they were too busy to train her. They gave her $50 and told her to try to buy some hashish at a downtown bar called the Frisco Club.

Marilyn Bailey as an APD police officer in 1975.

"The sergeant said, 'Can you get a gun? You'll need a gun. Something with an ankle holster.' "

She'd never fired a gun, but her boyfriend at the time, a state trooper, let her borrow one and took her shooting. They didn't have a car for her, she said. So she took her own, after changing the plates. Dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, she went to the Frisco. She had no backup. She was 27 years old.

"I didn't have the sense to be scared."

After a couple of nights, she finally bought some drugs. Back at police headquarters, they were "marginally impressed," she said. Looking back, it appeared they weren't particularly interested in having her succeed.

"I just had to prove myself."

That fall, she headed to the academy. She wrote her research paper on riot control because it sounded macho. A male classmate wrote his on why women shouldn't be police officers. He got the better grade.

"I was a little peeved. But later on I did end up supervising him for a number of years," she said. "I'm not sure I changed his mind."

Once she graduated, Bailey started on patrol. She moved to burglary. She became a corporal, the first female street supervisor in the state. She was promoted to sergeant in the robbery unit. She moved to field training. Then she went back to the street as a supervisor for 13 years.

In 1997, Bailey became one of the department's first female lieutenants, working at the training center. She also managed to raise two kids, with the help of her husband, Allen Bailey, an attorney.

Neither of the other women in her academy class lasted more than a year.

Sgt. Marilyn Bailey with a moose that was shot by officer Fred Jones. The moose ran over Jones while he was searching for kids who got lost during an Easter Egg hunt in Russian Jack Springs Park in 1991. Bailey recently retired after a 39-year career with the Anchorage Police Department. She was one of APD's first female patrol officers.

Bailey had studied drama in school, and in a way, she said, it was the perfect preparation for police work. As a woman officer, she had a big interest in avoiding violence, and that often meant using social skills, sometimes for manipulation.

"You play a lot of roles," she said.

Bailey retired in 2000, but came back in 2001. Her job? Records clerk -- this time without undercover work. Then she became a background investigator for job applicants. Recent budget cuts finally pushed her into retirement. Her last day was last Thursday. As word spread that she was leaving, e-mails poured in.

"When you began at APD, it was clear that women were thought of as second-class officers and I marveled at the fact that any of you put up with the innuendoes and crap," one retired cop wrote her.

"Your tenacity early on cracked that darn 'glass ceiling' that allowed me and many other women to have a solid chance at making APD our family and career," wrote a female officer.

She never saw herself as an activist, she said. Mainly she just wanted an exciting job.

Marilyn Bailey, one of APD's first female patrol officers, has retired after a 39-year career.

APD now has 54 female sworn officers. That's less than 15 percent of the total. Bailey said women apply less often, though by percentage of applicants, they tend to get hired more. She suspects part of the reason there aren't more female applicants is that they are intimidated by the fitness testing. Women have to meet the same tough standard as men.

"It takes a lot of determination," she said. "But women can do it. I know they can."