Shenandoah Police Chief Troye Dunlap will retire in December, closing out nearly 30 years of service to the city. Dunlap joined the department in January 1997 and worked his way up through the ranks, serving five years as sergeant, four years as lieutenant and six years as chief of police before his planned departure.
According to a city news release, Dunlap was appointed permanent chief of police in September 2020 and has spent his tenure overseeing a string of firsts for the small-town department. He established Shenandoah's first K9 program, its first drone program and its first Honor Guard, per the same release. The city credits him with helping eliminate more than 360 hours per month of dedicated patrol that had been assigned to the Town Center, reallocating that coverage throughout the rest of Shenandoah instead.
Dunlap's path to the top job wasn't exactly conventional. As chron.com reported, he stepped in as interim chief in May 2020 after former chief Raymond Shaw resigned without notice, and the city council voted unanimously that September to make the appointment permanent. At the time, he took over a 26-member department, with the chief's position carrying a pay scale between $106,409 and $160,953 annually, the outlet noted.
A Career Built on Training and Standards
Dunlap's professional milestones stretch back to the start of his career. He was named Officer of the Year in both 1999 and 2017 and received the department's Meritorious Service Award in 2012, according to the city's announcement. More recently, he earned a peer-recognized Leadership Award in 2022 and a Lifesaving Award in 2025.
In 2002, after graduating from the Cooper Institute, Dunlap became Shenandoah's first Physical Fitness Specialist for Law Enforcement and helped establish the department's physical fitness standards, per the city release. He also developed an officer readiness program designed to prepare newly hired officers for the job, according to a separate city announcement.
City officials framed his departure as the end of an era. John Escoto said chief Dunlap has dedicated three decades to the city of Shenandoah, praising his efforts to raise department standards and provide officers with training, resources and support, per the city's statement. Dunlap himself said it has been an honor to serve the city of Shenandoah for nearly 30 years, adding that the expectation that officers serve with professionalism has not changed.
Staffing Pressures Shaped His Final Years
Dunlap's last stretch as chief came amid a broader staffing squeeze that he was candid about publicly. Speaking to the city council in April 2025, he described competitive law-enforcement pay as a nationwide problem and said Shenandoah was falling behind, according to Community Impact. He proposed letting officers take home their patrol vehicles as a retention incentive, and told officials that four officers had applied to the Texas Department of Public Safety, with two already in the background-check process.
That hiring crunch wasn't abstract for Shenandoah. Dunlap said it was taking the department roughly nine months to fill a single open position, the outlet reported. Those remarks echoed priorities he'd flagged years earlier: back when he was still interim chief in 2020, he identified communication between police and the public and expanded officer training as areas he wanted to improve, Community Impact noted at the time.
City Launches Search for a Successor
With Dunlap's retirement approaching, Shenandoah has contracted with Clear Career Professionals to conduct the search for the department's next police chief, according to the city. Dunlap worked with the city council, mayor, city administrator and city attorney on the patrol-hour change.
No timetable for naming a successor has been made public, and it remains unclear how candidates will be evaluated or whether the search will include public input. For now, Shenandoah officials are simply marking the close of a career that began in January 1997 and spanned nearly three decades inside one department.
