BELLE FOURCHE - The newest police officer in Belle Fourche has some personal stories to tell young people about the consequences drinking and driving - and other stories to tell younger officers about investigating major crimes in a small town.

Nolan Clark just started work as a fully state-certified officer the day after Labor Day.

The former East River policeman quickly discovered that at least one anonymous person wanted to make sure that an off-duty drunken driving charge in 2006 would not be forgotten. Clark's background was sent anonymously to at least two area newspapers, including the Rapid City Journal, with a note, "The City of Belle Fourche hired this guy as a police officer?"

Police Chief Tom Maunders and Belle Fourche City Council Police Committee Chairman Henry Nore said they don't have problems with Clark's mistake - and neither do state officials who gave a green light to hire the 28-year-old.

Maunders said that only two drinks in one hour can put a person over the point at which someone is legally presumed intoxicated. That should be a lesson to everybody, he said, and not just to a young officer.

Clark stopped with other traffic at a S.D. Highway Patrol sobriety checkpoint, told the trooper he had been drinking, and tests indicated his blood alcohol concentration was at .10 - just above the limit of .08. He also told the trooper there was a loaded firearm in the console.

The patrolman charged him with driving under the influence and possession of a firearm while intoxicated.

While the case wound through court, Clark continued as police chief at Centerville, a town of about 900 people halfway between Sioux Falls and Yankton.

The firearm charge was dropped, and Clark's guilty plea to misdemeanor drunken driving brought him a $2,000 fine, a 30-day driving suspension - and a suspended imposition of sentence, so the violation has been removed from his record.

Clark said he also had an agreement with state law enforcement officials that he would take at least a year off from law enforcement.

That year ended this August, and the South Dakota Attorney General's office and state Division of Criminal Investigation gave a green light for Clark to resume his police career.

The anonymous letter to newspapers angers Maunders and Nore, who say Clark's past was not a secret when he was hired.

Nore calls it "character assassination."

Maunders said anonymous notes on and off the Internet "gets really old," as opposed to people willing to go on the record with a complaint. He said that if state law enforcement certification officials are satisfied with Clark's record, he sees no problem.

Clark's experience as a young investigator may be more interesting than the drunken-driving charge.

He was hired as Centerville's police chief after the previous chief, Rayne Adamson, resigned to run a bar. Before Clark was on the job, Adamson's wife had been found dead with a bullet in her head. That case remains unsolved.

Clark ultimately investigated Adamson for providing alcohol to minors and a statutory rape case involving a 14-year-old girl.

Adamson is in prison today, according to an Associated Press report, after being found guilty of witness tampering in the rape case and for providing alcohol to minors. He was found not guilty of statutory rape.

Clark said statements by defense attorneys after the trial about Clark's conduct led to a state investigation. Clark said he was cleared of wrongdoing. The exact nature of the investigation was not released.