Sheriff Stockton keeping students clear of trouble

Friday, April 29, 2016
Banner Graphic/Jared Jernagan Greeting Tzouanakis Intermediate School students as they depart on Friday, Sheriff Scott Stockton gets a high five from Cameron Mansfield. The sheriff is visiting every fifth grade in the county to share the book "Be the Best You Can Be" with the students.

Be the best you can be.

It's an obvious enough piece of advice that it can border on the cliché. But Sheriff Scott Stockton is trying to make it a way of life for Putnam County fifth-graders.

The second-year sheriff has been visiting the fifth-grade classes of Putnam County recently, bringing exactly that message along with a book of the same name.

"Be the Best You Can Be" is a small, hard-bound book with a series of fictional stories about kids making choices and the consequences that follow if the choices are the wrong ones.

Visiting Tzouanakis Intermediate School on Friday, the fifth of six schools Stockton will visit, the sheriff told the students they are entering a point in their lives in which their friends play a bigger and bigger role in the decisions they make.

"If your friends want you to do something and you have to think about whether it's the right thing, what do you think, is that a good decision?" Stockton asked.

The students answered with a chorus of "no."

Thinking before they act is a key part of Stockton's message to the kids.

"What I want you to do, and what your teachers want you to do, is think," he said. "Think before you act."

Stockton went on to emphasize the importance of the students listening to responsible adults in their lives -- teachers, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

"I can remember every grade school teacher I had at Bainbridge because they were all trying to help me," Stockton said.

Stockton has been trying to bring a positive message, but one that also carries a warning.

"This isn't a 'scared straight,'" Stockton said. "We're not trying to intimidate the kids. We're just trying to advise them and counsel them that the decisions you make early on can affect you later."

To help with that message, Juvenile Probation Officer Renee Marsteller has accompanied Stockton to most of the schools. Her role is to share stories of kids who are already in the system, trying to make up for decisions they've made.

Even so, Stockton emphasized to the Tzouanakis students that there is still time and hope.

"If you have made poor decisions and you are going down that path, there is time for you to straighten up," Stockton said.

Stockton's visits also include a question-and-answer time, as the sheriff tries to explain what life is like in law enforcement.

He told that getting through the Indiana State Police Academy was extremely difficult, but ultimately rewarding.

"Anything that you want in life that is hard to achieve is worth having in the end," Stockton said.

It's all part of the choices Stockton wants to see the students making as they move forward.

"This summer and from this point on in your life, I want you to be the best you can be," Stockton said.

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