Laura Maule and Elizabeth Bozard aren’t just sisters in real life. They are also sisters in blue, both proudly serving as troopers with the SC Highway Patrol.

“Growing up, I was her keeper. I’d watch over her,” said Bozard, who is the oldest by a few years. “Now, it’s the opposite — the roles have reversed, and I really look up to her.”

As the younger sister, Maule learned from Bozard’s mistakes growing up.

“When she would get in trouble, I knew what not to do,” Maule said. “I would get in trouble sometimes and go hide behind her because Mama was coming at me with a paddle. I’d hide behind Elizabeth and she would laugh.”

It was in these childhood years that their desire to work in law enforcement was born. Their mother is a retired Barnwell County 9-1-1 dispatcher, and their late father, Corporal Doug Maule, served 24 years in the Highway Patrol before retiring in 2003. It was after his death in 2013 that Maule found a new direction in life.

“I said, ‘This is it. I’m going into law enforcement,’” Maule recalled. “I knew right then and there that I was going to be a trooper. I felt like it made me closer to him.”

Bozard, who was a county sheriff’s deputy at the time, joined the Highway Patrol a few years later.

“It’s a legacy for us, and we need to continue it,” she said. “I love wearing the uniform, but I wear this uniform for my dad.”

The sisters are part of a small, unique sisterhood in the law enforcement profession, where women make up just 12 percent of sworn officers, according to FBI statistics. Both are Master Troopers in the Highway Patrol, with Maule working in Troop 8 as a K-9 handler and Bozard patrolling the roadways of Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell and Hampton counties in Troop 7.

They often encounter people who knew their father. Even the people he ticketed, recall their interactions with him fondly.

“It makes me feel like that’s a way of Daddy talking to me and saying, ‘Hey, I’m watching you,’” Maule said. “He gave people the respect they needed whenever he pulled them over. I try to follow in those footsteps.”

The two motivate and support each other in their work. Maule persuaded her sister to come to the Highway Patrol. And it was Bozard’s experience as a K-9 handler with the sheriff’s office that inspired Maule to join the Highway Patrol’s K-9 unit.

“She’ll call me and we’ll talk about things. I’ll give her advice on the dogs,” said Bozard. “She likes to hear my perspective on things, and that makes me feel good.”

That hasn’t always been the case, though. Before their father’s passing, they rarely talked.

“After our dad passed away 10 years ago, we have gotten a lot closer,” Bozard said.

Maule chuckles at the number of times her sister calls her on their days off.

“She should pay my phone bill because she calls me so much,” she said. “Sometimes I want to say, ‘Elizabeth, I’m doing the same thing I was doing the last time you called me 10 minutes ago.”

Since the sisters work in different parts of the state, they aren’t usually on the same radio channel. But Maule was recently sent to assist in Troop 7 for a brief period.

“We were out working the same area, pulling cars over together,” Bozard recalled. “That was so much fun. People were saying, ‘The sister duo is at it again!’”

Bozard remembers a call her sister got involved in one night that made her heart sink.

“She got into a pursuit. At first, she didn’t come back on the radio, and I started to panic,” Bozard said. “It took everything I had not to turn around and go help her. Then she keyed up, and everything was OK.”

That’s the nature of their bond, she added, whether they are on duty or off duty.

“We still, to this day, watch out for each other,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have her. Whether it be sister or brother, your bond is unbreakable. We will always, no matter where or what, be with each other.”

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