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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- She traded a nun's habit for a .38-caliber revolver and walked into history as one of the first two women to become an FBI agent.
Now, after 22 years as a pioneer in the FBI, Joanne Misko is hanging up her holster tomorrow to take a job with a bank.
She said her career in the FBI has been anything but dull.
Three months into her first posting in St. Louis, she was assigned to spend seven weeks in South Dakota at the Wounded Knee Indian Reservation. At one point, she found herself ducking inside an armored personnel carrier as bullets whizzed overhead and bounced off the steel sides. She and other agents were trying to mediate a dispute between two tribes.
Two years later, two FBI agents on the same reservation were fatally shot while searching for a robbery suspect.
Ms. Misko says becoming an FBI agent was a natural step in her career.
She served for 10 years in the Sisters of Mercy order, based in Buffalo, N.Y., teaching seventh and eighth grades...