BUCYRUS – The Commander of the Ohio State Highway Patrol post in Bucyrus is moving on down the highway.
Lt. Scott Rike, 50, who has been the face of the local Highway Patrol for five years, has been promoted to assistant district commander of the agency’s Findlay District headquarters, which covers all of Northwest Ohio, effective March 1.
“The Highway Patrol has been near and dear to my heart for years,” Rike said amid a few tears on Wednesday, his last day at the helm in Bucyrus. “It was hard for me to say good-bye. But I felt like a sense of accomplishment when I walked out the door.”
Rike, a Bucyrus native and a 23-year veteran of the Highway Patrol, has skipped around the state during his tenure. He was assigned to the Wooster Post following graduation from the Patrol Academy in 1997, then transferred to the busy Massillon post.
He spent five years “working the road” in Massillon until, in 2005, he was promoted to Sergeant at the Findlay District Headquarters. That stint, however, was short-lived when a rare life-threatening disease called Scleroderma forced him to retire a year later.
In late 2007 and “by the grace of God,” Rike conquered the autoimmune disorder and returned to Massillon, which is now the Canton OHP post. He also worked in Marion and Ashland so that he could take care of his late father, Richard Rike, when he became terminally ill.
Rike’s dream of returning to his hometown came true in 2010 when he joined the Bucyrus post as assistant commander, a position he held for five years. In 2015, he took over as commander, overseeing the patrol’s operations in both Crawford and Wyandot Counties.
“Serving in Bucyrus has been awesome,” said Rike, a 1989 Colonel Crawford High School graduate. “It’s like being the quarterback where you have to give credit to all who work for you too. It’s been very rewarding for me, and I can’t think of a prouder organization to work for.”
Rike, who earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Tiffin University, met his wife, Tami, there. They were married in Las Vegas in 1994 and have two sons, David, 12, and Jax, 10, both students at Colonel Crawford, where Rike also serves on the school board.
Although he now has a 45-mile commute, Rike and his family will remain in Bucyrus, in the same brick home he grew up in north of town. Because this lieutenant, although he requested no farewell gathering, hopes his tenure here will have a lasting impact.
“My legacy is when I walked out that door that people could say ‘Scott Rike never treated me bad,’” he said. “I wear my heart on my sleeve. But I do it because I want to do it. My father would be very proud of me. One of his dying words was, ‘I know you’ll go far.’”