Marana Police used its 2026 awards ceremony to publicly recognize officers, professional staff, volunteers and community members — including a group of Lifesaving Award recipients and one citizen lifesaving honoree.
According to the Town of Marana, the ceremony was held Wednesday, April 22, 2026, in the community room at the Marana Aquatic and Recreation Center. The department said the event honored professional staff, officers and civilian personnel for outstanding service over the past year.
The department listed eight Lifesaving Award recipients: Sergeant Caylee Baker; Officers Joseph Klein, James Riegert, Matthew York, Travis Napier, Brandon Laird, Jonathan Grove and Daniel Ruiz.
A Town of Marana source photo from the ceremony shows the Lifesaving Award display describing the honor as being bestowed for an act that resulted in the saving or preservation of a human life that may have expired without direct action by the rescuer, and that was beyond the scope of normal professional performance.
Marana Police also recognized Taylor Hutchison with a Citizen Lifesaving Award, listed Chief’s Commendation Award recipients, and named Officer James Jolly as Officer of the Year.
Other public recognitions listed by the department included professional staff, newly hired officers, a detective promotion, a Chief’s Unit Citation for the Crime Scene Unit, Chief’s Citation of Excellence recipients, Volunteer of the Year Brad Nelson, Civilian of the Year Rachelle Fox, and Distinguished Service recognition for Vincent Jenkins, John Perryman, Darrel Gleddie and Terry Jellison, with the latter two listed posthumously.
The awards page did not provide separate incident narratives for each lifesaving recipient, so ThinBlueNews is limiting this report to the names, categories and ceremony details published by the Town of Marana.
For communities that support public safety, the ceremony is another reminder that lifesaving work is often recognized after the fact — in the names of officers, dispatchers, staff members, volunteers and citizens whose actions may not make a national headline but still matter locally.
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ThinBlueNews will update this story if additional official incident details for the lifesaving awards become available.