DARE students graduate

BROWNSTOWN — Today’s kids may know more than their parents and others credit them with knowing, but that doesn’t mean those same kids can’t learn more.

“I learned there are a lot more ways of saying ‘no’ than I thought there was,” fifth-grader Seth Krieger said Tuesday, just minutes after he received his certificate for completing the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.

Krieger joined 13 classmates from Freetown Elementary, along with nearly 170 other fifth-graders from Brownstown Elementary, Lutheran Central and Medora Elementary, in celebrating their completion of the 10-week program. The program is designed to give children the skills needed to avoid involvement in alcohol and drugs as well as gangs and violence.

The program was established by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department nearly 20 years ago by then-Sheriff Herschel Baughman. Detective Bob Lucas is the department’s DARE officer, and he teaches classes at Freetown, Medora, Lutheran Central and Crothersville. Brownstown Officer Tom Wright teaches fifth-graders at Brownstown Elementary School.

The officers provide students with information about alcohol and drugs and the consequences of their actions and teach decision-making skills and how to resist peer pressure. Those lessons are reinforced with two simple words: “Say no.”

Krieger said the DARE officers try to make the lessons exciting by adding hands-on activities.

“It’s fun,” he said.

His classmate, Caleb Brewer, agreed.

“I liked the fatal vision goggles,” Brewer said.

Students wearing the goggles, which blur vision, have to try to walk a straight line.

“I liked doing that,” Brewer said.

Brewer wrote the winning essay in his class.

“DARE is very good,” he wrote. “It has not just helped me, but my whole class. I think everyone should take DARE.”

Wright said his experiences as a police officer and DARE officer have shown him one thing.

“These kids know more than we give credit for,” he said.

Seymour Mayor Craig Luedeman was the guest speaker for the graduation ceremony.

Luedeman talked about three young people and the decisions they made in life.

Two resisted using drugs and became successful in life, one as a pharmacist and the other as a fireman.

“The third one decided he wanted to say yes to using drugs,” Luedeman said.

That individual recently found himself lying on the ground with local officers pointing guns at him during a drug bust, Luedeman said.

“Two people decided to do something successful with their lives,” he said. “The other one didn’t.”

Lt. Darin Downs with the sheriff’s department said he believes Jackson County has one of the more successful programs because of the financial support it receives from the community.

“It costs $6,000 a year,” Downs said.