Lumpkin recognized with Olive Branch Mayor’s Award

Photo: Mayor Ken Adams awards dispatcher Melissa Lumpkin the monthly Mayor’s Award for helping find a missing mother and child in June. (Courtesy photo)

The latest Olive Branch Mayor’s Award winner is a dispatcher who helped find a missing mother and child in early June. 

Melissa Lumpkin was recognized and provided a $250 Mayor’s Award funded by private funds during Tuesday’s Board of Aldermen meeting.  

Lumpkin became involved in a situation on the afternoon of June 6 when a police officer answered a welfare check call on a woman and her daughter at City Park.  

The woman told the officer she was needing a ride for the pair to enter a homeless shelter in Tupelo.  She gave the officer her information for Lumpkin to check on out of Wisconsin, but Lumpkin could not find her file information.  

Lumpkin did, however, remember a media report about a missing mother and child, and proceeded to check the Memphis database for additional information. She discovered the woman was reported missing from Memphis, along with a two-year-old juvenile. 

With that knowledge, the officer was able to take the woman and child to police headquarters to talk with detectives. An Olive Branch detective contacted the Memphis Police Department to get the missing persons information.  

“We would like to commend Dispatcher Lumpkin for going above and beyond in finding the missing Child flyer out of Memphis Police Department, which allowed our officer to recover the missing child,” Mayor Ken Adams said.