NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEBRASKA STATE PATROL
www.nsp.state.ne.us
Contact: Deb Collins 402-479-4985
September 23, 2009

Nebraska D.A.R.E. Holds Officer Graduation

(Grand Island, NE)- On Friday, September 25, 2009, eleven officers from Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri will graduate from the 24th Nebraska D.A.R.E.  Officer Training.  Daniel Petersen, a sophomore from Aurora High School will be the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony, which will take place beginning at 11:00 a.m., at the Nebraska Law Enforcement Training Center/Nebraska State Patrol Training Academy, 3600 Academy Road, Grand Island, Nebraska.   Petersen represents Nebraska as a member on D.A.R.E. America’s Youth Advisory Board.  He was selected in the fall of 2008 after being nominated by Lt. Paul Graham of the Aurora Police Department.

Founded in 1983, in Los Angeles, California, D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teach children from kindergarten through 12th grade how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug and violence free lives.  In Nebraska there are 142 schools and 64 cities offering D.A.R.E. programs.

D.A.R.E. Officer Training (DOT) consists of 80 hours of specialized training in areas such as child development, classroom management, teaching techniques and communication skills.
The D.A.R.E. curriculum is designed to be taught by police officers whose training and experience give them the background needed to answer the sophisticated questions often posed by young students about drugs and crime.  D.A.R.E. provides children the skills needed to recognize and resist the subtle and overt pressures that cause them to experiment with drugs or become involved in gangs or violent activities.

Name	Agency	State
Officer Jill Allgood	Superior Police Department	Nebraska
Patrolman Lewis Barker	Sac and Fox Tribal Police	Kansas
Officer Scott Collett	LaVista Police Department	Nebraska
Deputy Ben Crabtree	Hamilton County Sheriff’s Department	Nebraska
Chief Deputy Darrin Kremer	Brown County Sheriff’s Department	Nebraska
Officer Salatha Jones	Kansas City Police Department	Missouri
Officer Taquiza Johnson	Kansas City Police Department	Missouri
Officer Justin Pachner	McCook Police Department	Nebraska
Officer Jamie Schuster	LaVista Police Department	Nebraska
Deputy Josh Vossler	Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department	Nebraska
Officer Jennifer Zimmerman	Kansas City Police Department	Missouri

Chief Deputy Terry McCune of the Dundy County Sheriff’s Office also participated in seven days of re-certification training.  Chief Deputy McCune, who was originally certified in 2005, attended only part of the training because he was not actively teaching within the last two years.

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