BATON ROUGE- A group of forty-nine men and women will join the ranks of the Louisiana State Police Department this weekend.

The individuals will officially become state police cadets reporting to the LSP training academy beginning with an intensive training regime on Sunday.

Candidates for the class were chosen after completing an extensive hiring process which included a written test, physical fitness assessment, psychological evaluation, background investigation and more.

During the 20 week long academy, cadets will receive training in various subjects including emergency vehicle operations, impaired driving detection, advanced crash investigation, and traffic incident management.

Cadet class 97 is the sixth state police cadet class to be held since January 2014. It will run concurrently with LSP cadet class 96.