Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Prescott Natives Join INS

Prescott native Joseph A. Beavers has graduated from the Border Patrol Training Academy (BPTA) in Charleston, S.C., after completing a 20-week course that included Spanish, immigration law, firearms, tactics and rough-terrain driving.

Beavers, 28, has been assigned to the McAllen, Texas, Border Patrol Sector.

Also graduating from BPTA was Star City native Larry Joey Grayson, who is a 1992 graduate of Prescott High School.

Grayson, 24, has been assigned to the Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Sector.

He is the son of Larry J. Grayson of Star City and Jan Morton of McCaskill. Grayson and his wife, the former Jennifer Guye of Prescott, have two children, Kai Lani Glass, 10, and Griffin Grayson, 1.

Beavers is a 1988 graduate of Prescott High School.

He is the son of Pamela Chism of Prescott and Mike Beavers of Hope. He is married to Rhonda Beavers of Prescott and they have one daughter, Josie Ann, 4.

Asked what advice he would give anyone interested in joining the Border Patrol and making it through the academy, he said, "Start running now! A lot!"

The U.S Border Patrol is a branch of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Border Patrol agents apprehend illegal aliens and interdict narcotics entering the United States.

The patrol has jurisdiction throughout the country, but it operates primarily along the U.S. borders between ports of entry with Canada and Mexico.