Members of the local law enforcement community are mourning the loss of a trooper who had worked 20 years with the Tennessee Highway Patrol.

Mark K. Self, 42, died Tuesday night after a battle with cancer. A resident of Dandridge and native of Newport, he is survived by his wife Stacy and two children.

Visitation is Friday, and services are Saturday, both at Manley Baptist Church in Morristown.

Self began his law enforcement career at the Cocke County Sheriff’s Department, where he was a deputy from 1993 through 1997. He joined the Tennessee Highway Patrol in 1997 and was named Trooper of the Year in the Fall Branch District in 2011.

A certified Emergency Medical Technician, Self helped deliver a healthy baby girl that October on Interstate 40 after a panicking motorist flagged him down. The driver of the car told the trooper he didn’t think he was going to make it to the hospital before his wife gave birth. Self called for an ambulance, but the baby had already made her appearance by the time it arrived.

Three years before that, Self stopped another kind of delivery, also on Interstate 40. He pulled over an eighteen-wheeler that was going 30 miles per hour over limit and later discovered $1.5 million in cocaine hidden in the trailer.

Quiet and calm, but always ready to help, Self was well-respected among fellow officers at the Highway Patrol and elsewhere. The trooper was a graduate of King College and Walters State. He was a lifetime member of the Newport Rescue Squad.