Three new much-needed state troopers are on the road in southwest Mississippi.

Eddie Liggins, 32, Kevin Oliver, 35, and Leo Clemons, 27, started patrolling in late December.

The three recently graduated from the state patrol training program and are a welcome addition to the force.

“They’re filling positions that have been vacant for years,” Public Affairs Officer Sgt. Rusty Boyd said Thursday. “We have been working real short for probably the last three or four years.”

They’ve been so short troopers, in fact, Boyd himself has been working two jobs, patrolling and filling his public affairs position.

“We’ve gotten down to 21 or 22 troopers working nine counties,” Boyd said. “We do the best we can with what we have.”

And now they have three more.

Liggins, now stationed in Natchez, came to the force after working several years at the Claiborne County Sheriff’s Office.

He said he was always interested in law enforcement.

“I wanted to be the best,” he said. “And to protect the state, state troopers are the highest you can go.”

Liggins had a brother who was a state trooper and was influenced by how much he enjoyed it.

“So, I gave it a try and fell in love with it, too,” he said.

Oliver, too, had always looked at law enforcement as a potential career.

He’s been interested “since I was little, five or six years old,” Oliver said.

He started out working in a correctional facility, but he felt it was too confining.

“I was too cooped up there,” he said.

Now, Oliver will be able to spread out over Adams, Jefferson and Franklin Counties, among others.

Clemmons, living in Natchez, said he will mostly be patrolling Jefferson County but will patrol Franklin and Adams once in a while.

After eight years in the marines, he looked for a job and heard the patrol was hiring.

“I heard it was a challenge,” Clemons said. “And that’s what I was looking for — the challenge.”