About FOP Lodge #24

For those of you who know the history of how our FOP lodge was formed this will be familiar. For those of you who do not know how the Lodge started here is how the story goes:

On a rainy night in 1973 a Charles County Sheriff's Officer was out directing traffic at an intersection in Waldorf and he was soaked to the bone because he didn't have a rain coat. A vehicle stopped and the occupants asked the officer why he didn't have a rain coat and the officer replied "we aren't issued rain coats." The occupant of the car then retrieved his Anne Arundel County Police raincoat from his trunk and gave it to the officer. The story is true and those actions led to our Lodge being formed. That person was Leslie "Les" Bates and he was the Maryland State FOP President at the time.

Earl Kratsch, the other occupant of the vehicle that rainy night, is the current Treasurer of the Maryland State Lodge.