When Beech Grove police officers remember former chief Dan Challis, they remember an even-tempered professional.
Challis served as Beech Grove’s police chief for 11 years. He also served as a member of the department’s pension board. One of the people he hired was current chief Mike Swartz.
“He never raised his voice or yelled at anybody that I ever heard of,” Swartz says.
Beech Grove officers Lt. Mike Treat and Maj. Tom Eagan, each of whom knew Challis for more than a decade, echo the sentiment. They call Challis easy to talk to and down to earth.
Challis was an avid golfer. Eagan recalls the worst thing about playing with him was the practice swings. He’d take seven or 10 before hitting the ball. He says he used to joke with Challis that he was wasting all his energy on them.
Still, Treat calls him a “dead-eye” on the golf course.
After retiring, he tended bar one day a week at O’Gara’s Irish Pub and held a crew position on the South Fisher Racing Team in the Indy Racing League.
Lifelong friend John O’Gara and his son, racing team manager Andy O’Gara, fondly remember spending time with Challis at the races, especially after the team’s first win in 2011 at the Kentucky Indy 300.
“We kind of took off running toward victory circle, but we didn’t know where it was,” John says. “We were jumping fences. It was crazy.”
“I think he was probably happier for Sarah and me,” Andy says, adding it was special “to see how much joy that brought him and celebrating in victory lane and later at the team party.”
Eagan says Challis was a “community-oriented chief.” Among other things, he, along with John, helped with the Carz ‘r’ Us car show. It remains one of the largest funders for the police department’s Shop With a Cop program.
It was the kind of community dedication, Eagan says, that comes from a hometown guy.
“He never asked for anything in return and would always help out someone in need,” Treat says.
Originally published in Southside Times, 2016. Republished here for archival and portfolio purposes.