Every year, thousands of students walk across the stage at the University of South Carolina and step into the job market. Most head for offices. A few head somewhere very different.

This spring, three of them — Annabella Loscalzo, Klaire Petersen and Kendra Welehorsky — traded their caps and gowns for a career with the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. They came from different states and different reasons, but they all landed in the same place: standing at the start of their training, ready to serve.

It usually starts small

For Annabella, it started in front of a TV.

“I grew up watching ‘Hawaii Five-O’ as a kid, and I would say that’s really what sprung my interest,” she said.

That early curiosity turned into two years interning with LCSD — enough time to know this wasn’t a passing phase. When she moved to South Carolina in 2022 for college, she started hitting the career fairs, and one booth changed everything: the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department was tabling, she got to talking and she came on board.

Annabella’s route had a fork in it. She came from Tampa, Florida, to study criminology and criminal justice at USC, and for a while, she thought she might go to law school. Then her internship happened.

“I started the internship and I kind of veered away from that, because I really wanted to do what my heart wanted to do,” she said.

The moment that clinched it? Time spent with the K-9-unit.

“Just learning from them a different type of policing... and the good mentorship I had from their whole team,” Annabella said.

Kendra knew even earlier.

“I’ve wanted to be a law enforcement officer since I was a kid, like 13 years old,” she said.

Internships only sharpened that interest. One of those was at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy, where a longtime instructor — someone who’d worked at Lexington County for more than 30 years — became a mentor and talked to her constantly about the department. His stories, and everything he told her, sealed it.

Why Lexington County

All three could have gone anywhere. They chose LCSD.

The department’s reputation came up again and again.

Klaire had “heard good things about the department from some of (her) friends who interned (there).”

Kendra heard the same thing from a different angle — at the Criminal Justice Academy, she noticed recruits coming out of Lexington County consistently posted strong academic scores.

“I want to make sure I’m prepped for when I get on the street,” she said. “I want to make sure I know what I’m doing.”

For Annabella, it was also about belonging. She wanted to step out of her comfort zone, do “something bigger than myself” — and she found a place that felt like home. As it turns out, the people helped.

“The people here are even friendlier than they are in Florida,” she said, laughing.

The hiring process might surprise you

If the word “application” makes you picture a black hole where resumes disappear, these three would push back. The process, they said, was refreshingly human.

“During the hiring process, I was really surprised by the smoothness and efficiency of it,” one of them notes. Yes, there are a lot of steps — you get an email that lays them all out — but it moves. “I never felt like I wasn’t being responded to.”

And once training started, another surprise.

“A lot of the time when you think of police training, you think it’s super serious and stoic, and no one wants to know who you are. But people really want to get to know you — where you came from, why you want to be here — and really help you succeed.”

What they’re building toward

Ask them about five years from now and you hear ambition, not just idealism. Specialized units, task forces, roads they haven’t driven yet. But underneath all of it is a simpler idea about what the job is really for.

“A big part of policing is the trust the community has in us,” one said. “Without people talking to us, it’s really hard to do our job.”

Their generation, they point out, grew up alongside the shift toward community-based policing — reaching out, making connections, rebuilding trust and being there for people “on their worst days.”