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McKenzie School Resource and D.A.R.E.
Officer, Jackie Sykes
Top teen idol Jackie Sykes didn't find
fame through the normal routes of teenage acclaim; he's
not a musician or an actor and his uniform makes him an
unlikely magnet for the high school crowd. But every
school day he can be found fitting into the youthful
masses with the confidence of a well-liked hero; a role
model and friend the kids know shoots straight from the
hip, telling it like it is concerning subjects like drugs
and violence.
Officer Sykes is the School Resource Officer for the
McKenzie Special School District, rotating among the
city's three schools to ensure safety as well as
complementing the education of the community's children.
Jackie entered the SRO program in January 2000 after
joining the McKenzie Police Department in August 1999.
Despite the fact that he was the only officer who applied
for the COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) funded
program, he was interviewed by the principals of all three
schools before being hired.
His own life was tailored early on to some of the
principles he tries his best to instill into children
today. "I know all about the things these kids should know
something about; getting up at 4:30 in the morning,
milking cows and going to school wearing the
distinguishing cologne of the milk barn," he laughs.
A "Henry Countian" since birth, Jackie grew up in the Camp
Tyson community where his family operated a dairy farm and
grew row crops.
By the time his parents, Fred and Jane Sykes, sold the
dairy farm when Jackie was a freshman at Henry County High
School, he had discovered on his own the value of "being
involved in positive things." As a photographer for the
school newspaper and yearbook staff, he stayed busy
photographing ballgames and other events. After school
hours, he always had a part time job, as well, plus work
to be done at home. "There was always something to do," he
says.
Being a student in the 70's was not without its perils.
"My graduating class had 309 students," Jackie recalls,
"That was a big era when you heard a lot about drugs; you
knew they were there."
Jackie went to work at Tecumseh after graduating in 1975.
Always interested in law enforcement, however, he jumped
at the chance to work with the Henry County Sheriff's
Department when former Sheriff Dickie Bomar allowed him to
join a small group of officer volunteers in 1978.
"It was a learning experience," Jackie explains, "It gave
me an opportunity to work around the jail and be out in
the car and learn about law enforcement before giving up a
full time job."
In April, 1979, he began working fulltime for the
Sheriff's Department as a dispatcher, a position he found
invaluable in transitioning into full-fledged police work.
"Every body that works in law enforcement ought to
dispatch," he advises, "It gave me the opportunity to
study law books, read the criminal code, and learn the
county roads." Besides, he continues knowingly, "I was
young and wanted to set the woods on fire; dispatching was
a good place to start."
He hit the roads as a patrolman in the summer of 1980,
still red-hot but with his energies directed by his
self-study plus a stint at the law enforcement academy
during October and November of 1979.
His training came in handy when, in 1983 he and Shift
Sergeant Larry Cox went on a routine assignment to serve
an arrest warrant on a hit and run suspect. "Larry took
two bullets, and they just missed me," says Jackie.
"Somebody was looking after us; I was able to go back to
the car and radio for help."
He met his wife, the former Donna Evans of Big Sandy, the
same year. In the 20 years since they met and married, the
couple have added two children and three grandchildren to
their family. Oldest daughter Heather and husband Charlie
Bratton live in Latham with their three children, ages
three, two, and 2.5 weeks old, while 15 year old April is
a sophomore at Henry County High School.
"She's an Effort Scholar," Jackie says proudly, recounting
her hours of community service in the program.
As time went on, Jackie took advantage of every
opportunity for continued education, eventually attending
basic drug enforcement education under the Governor's
Alliance for a Drug-Free Tennessee with three fellow
officers.
"It gave a lot of ideas to think about and be aware of
with drug enforcement, especially out there on the night
shift by yourself," he nods, "It also gave us the
opportunity to help us prepare the shifts for what can
happen; it gave us a heads up on preparing field officers
with what they need to know."
The drugs Jackie only heard about in high school he now
encountered on the streets, from bales of marijuana to
sheets of "purple microdot" LSD. When Jackie took on the
responsibility of School Resource Officer, he knew the
importance of protecting a new generation of children from
the myriad of evils imposed upon society by an
ever-increasing influx of drugs.
"Part of what I do with the schools is the D.A.R.E.
Program," Jackie says with fresh enthusiasm.
Tennessee's website at www.state.tn.us/safety/d.a.r.e.
states the purpose of the 20-year-old program is to teach
our children... that popularity can be found in positive
behavior, that belonging need not require them to abandon
their values, and that self-confidence and self-worth come
from asserting themselves and resisting destructive
temptations.
D.A.R.E. officers like Officer Sykes teach the children
more than just why it is important to refuse drugs and
alcohol; it teaches them how to do it through a
specifically designed curriculum that focuses on issues
like personal safety, drug use and misuse, consequences of
behavior, resisting peer pressure, building self-esteem,
assertiveness training, managing stress without taking
drugs, media images of drug use, role models, and how to
avoid gangs.
"This year will be a big change," says Jackie,
anticipating a brand new, $13.7 million dollar updated
curriculum that, in part, increases the focus on school
violence.
The Institute for Health and Social Policy at The
University of Akron, which developed the curriculum based
on the latest prevention research, explains the importance
of the new curriculum: "The new curriculum... focuses on
lifelike and problem-based activities, active learning by
students, and examines the complex reasoning behind
decisions and actions. This new program is designed to
reduce the use of tobacco, alcohol and drugs, as well as
prevent violence among youth."
Along with the new curriculum, Officer Sykes and school
officials plan to expand the program, continuing the fifth
grade emphasis while re-introducing the program to seventh
graders and continuing the high school program that is
taught in conjunction with Driver's Education.
Officer Sykes wants children and young people to know the
truth about drugs, dispelling myths prevalent in
communities such as that marijuana is not harmful and
letting them know that, along with the cocaine in crack -
already devastating on its own - are harmful additives
like anhydrous ammonia and battery acid.
As a part of his quest, in addition to serving in his
second one-year term as President of the Tennessee D.A.R.E.
Officers Association, Jackie is one of two police officers
involved in Tennessee's accredited D.A.R.E. Team Center
(the other officer is based in Metro Nashville) and five
state troopers. "I feel very fortunate to be part of
that," Jackie states sincerely. This past fall, he trained
27 patrolmen to be D.A.R.E. officers. Across the state,
98% of all D.A.R.E. officers have been certified for the
new D.A.R.E. curriculum.
"Not only is McKenzie a leader in the D.A.R.E. program,
the State of Tennessee is a leader; we've got our people
ready to go with the new curriculum," he says proudly.
The way Jackie sees it, the more numbers the better. With
critics spouting percentages left and right about the
failures of the program, Jackie confounds their numbers
game with one of his own.
"I feel like if I touch just one child in every classroom,
it works," he says strongly. "If each one of the 27 other
officers I trained touches one child, it works. If it's my
child, it's priceless; if it's your child, it's priceless;
if each one touches five children, that's a world of
pricelessness."
With D.A.R.E. operating in 80% of all school districts
around the country - reaching over 36 million young
people, according to I.H.S.P. - Jackie's pricelessness
theory reaches staggering proportions.
"Somewhere there's going to be a great payday for this."
he predicts.
More compelling than numbers to Jackie are the faces of
each child who is able to recall the ways he or she has
been taught to say no to alcohol and drugs. "When I ask
them ways to say no and they can tell me one of the ways
we've taught them, it works," Jackie insists, "Every one
of the students in the eighth grade can come up with at
least one way, and from that point on it gets easier to
say no."
As an outgrowth of the School Resource Program and D.A.R.E.,
high school role models talk with fifth grade students
from a more youthful perspective. They also participate in
other school activities, parking cars at football games
and other extracurricular activities.
"I'm very proud of those young people who want to be role
models," says Jackie of the 25 youths who volunteered this
year. "I like them signing up," he continues, "In the past
we had always asked who would make good role models and we
missed some good students; this way everybody gets an
opportunity to participate."
From the good-natured "aggravation" between Officer Sykes
and high school students to the adoration of those in
elementary school, Jackie reaps the rewards of his efforts
in love.
"That's part of what the program to me is all about," he
says. "A lot of those students at high school, they
aggravate me daily and I aggravate them. In the lower
grades when I've been out for training, they'll say,
'Where have you been? We've missed you.' I enjoy working
with the young people."
Eighth grade student Emily Watson went a step farther with
her regard for the officer, nominating him to be honored
with a postage stamp. Emily outlined Officer Sykes' duties
that make the schools a safer place to be: "He helps solve
the punishment for some kids, and what can help them," she
says, remarking on his kindness as well as his sterner
side that keeps wayward children in line. "There are not
many people who do drugs in our school either," she
continues. "Why? He teaches D.A.R.E., which is a program
that teaches kids not to do drugs. He may have even saved
a few lives of kids in our school by doing that, which is
the main reason I think he should be put on a stamp.
"Those are things that make him such a great person and
also why he should be on a postage stamp. If he was,
McKenzie, Tennessee would know that he is a good person."
Officer Sykes has three brothers - Harold, Leslie and
Rusty, who own and operate Cabinet Corner in Paris, a
D.A.R.E. Program supporter - and one sister, Fredda Bevel
of Memphis.
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