Detective offers up her voice for a cause

When Detective Stephanie Barkley isn’t busting bad guys, she’s crooning sweet melodies.

Barkley, who works in the Spokane Police Department’s domestic violence unit, is using her vocal talents to help out her colleagues. She is creating a CD of Christmas songs, and all proceeds will benefit the Police Department’s chaplaincy.

A police officer for 20 years, Barkley started singing as a little girl. At her Head Start graduation when she was 5, she asked to sing “America the Beautiful.”

Yet for a long time, stage fright forced Barkley to stifle her talent. While she sang in choirs, she could never bring herself to go it alone.

“I loved to sing. I never thought I had the ability,” said Barkley, 45. “I was just scared to death.”

She remembers her first solo at a junior high dance when she sang “Send in the Clowns.”

“(Before the performance) I cried and cried, and I was ready to quit,” she said. And after the song, she cried again.

After watching from the pews for a long time, she finally worked up the courage to ask her pastor if she could sing in church a few years ago. She’s been a soloist at the First Church of the Nazarene ever since.

“I just get so much positive reinforcement from people who say, ‘I just love the way you sing,’ ” she said. “It makes me really humble.”

Barkley sees her songs as a form of ministry, and she wants to inspire, comfort and bring joy.

Still, it took a long time for her to get over her stage fright. She would hold the mike with both hands and sweat and shake each time, she said.

First Church of the Nazarene Pastor Jerry McConnell said Barkley now shows no sign of nervousness.

“She can do the old hymns beautifully … with just a wonderful passion and spirit,” McConnell said.

Barkley said she prefers traditional hymns such as “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art.”

“I kind of stick with the Christian music. I feel that I’ve been given this gift, and I feel that’s what I should use it for,” she said.

Just as she started to get comfortable singing in church, Barkley had to sing in front of her fellow officers during a funeral.

“I was just horrified. We’re a critical bunch of people,” she said. But no one suggested that she be arrested for noise pollution; instead people said, “When I die I want you to sing at my funeral.”

She’s continued to sing at police functions. She also decided to compile a CD that would benefit the chaplaincy. Many of the chaplains are volunteers, supported through police contributions to the Chaplaincy Board.

The CD of traditional hymns and contemporary Christian songs, “A Shield Around Me,” was released about two years ago; Barkley sold about 425 of the 500 copies produced, for $15 each.

“I’ve gone aluminum,” she said, joking.

Spokane Police Senior Chaplain Ron Alter, who is the only full-time chaplain, said Barkley’s contributions have helped fund a second chaplain part-time.

“The proceeds are returned to the community through the work the chaplaincy does,” Alter said. Chaplains often accompany officers in cases with fatalities and death notifications.

“We help families with those initial stages of grief and shock,” Alter said.

Now Barkley is working on a collection of Christmas songs, titled “The Best Gift of All,” which she hopes to release later this year. Many of the songs are traditional hymns.

“There’s no ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,’ ” she said.

Working in the studio has nerve-wracking moments, said Barkley, who has already spent about eight hours recording 13 songs.

“You can hear every flat note, you can hear every mistake,” Barkley said. “The studio work is so amazing. They can make a schlep like me sound good.”

McConnell said the fact that Barkley is willing to donate all her proceeds is evidence that she has “a tender heart.”

“She’s always looking out for the underdog,” he said. “She isn’t a self-promoter.”

Barkley also sings with local band Last Man Standing, which gives proceeds to domestic violence victims. She has also tried to write her own songs.

“I’m not Mariah Carey. I’m not Celine Dion. I just sing who I am,” she said.