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Culler appointed to Indiana State Police Board
With only five appointments drawn from the state’s 92 counties, membership on the Indiana State Police Board puts someone in pretty rarified company.
Now one of Putnam County’s own will be serving in that capacity, as on Sept. 16, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced that Marilyn Culler of Greencastle, associate director of the DePauw University Media Fellows Program, would fill a vacancy on the ISP Board, serving until Sept. 30, 2026.
Having been on the Putnam County Sheriff’s Merit Board since early 2015, Culler is no stranger to serving on executive boards of police agencies. However, her association with ISP and state government goes back a bit further.
“Over the years, police work and media have sort of woven themselves together in my life,” Culler said. “So for this opportunity, I was surprised and honored and humbled.”
Culler first worked with a state law enforcement agency in the early 1980s, when she began assisting the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) with evidence photography. In 1985, on a visit to the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy (ILEA), she met the soon-to-retire photographer who said, “You should apply for my job.”
Culler did, and spent the next seven years at ILEA. In this capacity, she not only did photography, but assisted ISP during the 1987 Pan-Am Games in Indianapolis and did media relations training for new sheriffs and chiefs.
She also first met future Putnam County Sheriff Scott Stockton there, and their paths would continue to cross over the years.
At the time, Stockton was an ISP recruit wondering if it was a trick when his counselors invited him into Culler’s ILEA office for pizza. She assured him it was not.
After her time at ILEA, Culler began in the DePauw School of Music, later to become university photographer before moving to the Pulliam Center for Contemporary Media in 2002.
In the photography capacity, her path would again cross with Trooper Stockton, as he often escorted dignitaries to the university.
Then in 2015, when the newly-elected Sheriff Stockton had a vacancy on his merit board, Culler filled the void nicely. She’s remained on the board since.
“I’ve really had a good professional experience with Sheriff Stockton and the staff, setting standard operating procedures for his department,” Culler said. “We almost started from scratch, and I feel we have a very professional department here in Putnam County that I would put up against any law enforcement agency in the state.”
With that background, when Stockton got a call from ISP Supt. Doug Carter for a recommendation a couple of weeks ago, Culler was a no-brainer.
“I immediately recommended Marilyn. I said, ‘That’s your person. You can quit looking,’” Stockton recalled. “When I called Marilyn, I said, ‘Opportunity is knocking,’ because this is a huge opportunity.”
Indeed it is. Culler is going from a board that oversees 20 merit deputies covering the 483 square miles of the county to one with jurisdiction over 1,400 troopers covering the 36,418 square miles of Indiana.
Culler actually took Carter’s call on her birthday, “which was a nice birthday present,” she said. “I said I would humbly accept.”
She quickly took in her first meeting last week, not only meeting with Supt. Carter and the other board members, but getting a tour from PCSO legal counsel Todd Smith, who is also a retired trooper. Culler said it was a trip down memory lane to return to the Indiana State Office Building where she started about 40 years ago.
Culler was also pleasantly surprised to get to meet some of the new ISP recruits before their graduation from the academy, noting how it parallels the work she’s been able to do with young people at DePauw over the years.
“It really does dovetail with a lot of things I’ve done in my life,” Culler said. “It’s all coming together.”
As for the PCSO merit board, Culler’s new appointment leaves a vacancy in one of the sheriff’s three appointments to the board. Deputies make the other two appointments.
Rather than make a new appointment with just three months remaining in his final term in office, Stockton will leave the vacancy for Sheriff-elect Jerrod Baugh to fill with the individual of his choice.
The current members of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Merit Board are President Bill Newgent, Vice President Mike Dean and members Larry Sutton and Anthony Detro.