Officer Micah Host and wife Brittni with their daughter. | Submitted by Host family

By Lauren Thornton Tobin

Micah Host, 27, is patrolling the streets of Hartselle, or as he knows it, home.

The law enforcement field is nothing new to Host, as his father Alan Host once served for Hartselle Police Department and now serves as a deputy for Morgan County Sheriff’s Office. Host’s brother, Ryan, also works for the county jail.

Host said he watched his father work with the same officers whom Micah now gets to refer to as his own coworkers.

“I grew up knowing all the officers so it’s cool to work with them,” he said.

Before he left for the U.S. Marine Corps in 2011, Host worked as a Hartselle dispatcher.

“When I was a dispatcher, I worked for the police, but now as a police officer, I get to work with them side by side,” he said. “It’s been a cool transition coming back to the police family.”

Just as he watched his father work in the field, Host said joining the police force has always been a goal he wanted to achieve but after enlisting in the Marines, it was a dream he had to put on hold.

“It’s been a dream of mine but I never was able to pull the trigger and commit, and then I decided to go in Marine Corps and that took over,” he said.

After joining the military, Host served one tour with the Marine Expeditionary Unit where he traveled around the world on a naval aircraft carrier. Though that adventure had its perks, he said it was never easy being away from his family.

When he got back from his tour, Host was stationed at Camp Pendleton in Orange County, Calif.

He married his high school sweetheart Brittni Russell, also of Hartselle, in 2012 and the two began making a life for themselves in the Golden State.

“We really enjoyed it there,” Host said. “We went to the beach and traveled a little bit.”

Although the big city and beach life was fun for a while, when Micah and Brittni found out they had a baby on the way, they decided to move back to familiarity.

“Coming back to a small community where everyone is close and you can call a neighbor when you need help is appealing. In California you’re kind of out on your own,” he said. “We both agreed we didn’t want to raise a child out there and with both of our families living in Hartselle, it was an easy choice to come back to what we knew and loved.”

When they arrived back in town, Host said he knew he wanted to join Hartselle’s police force so he went to the station to talk to them.

The timing wasn’t right and the station wasn’t hiring, but as soon as that changed, Host jumped at the opportunity he had been waiting for.

“I always had it in the back of my mind and then I found out they had an opening,” he said, adding that his wife gave him extra encouragement to make the plunge. “With a small department, openings don’t come open often, so when it did and I found out, I applied.”

Now, Host said he plans to hang around Hartselle, enjoy time with his wife and their 8-month-old daughter, and continue living his dream of being a police officer.

“I think from here, we plan on having more kids and settling in,” he said. “That’s our goal for now — to settle in here and stay for a while.”