Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Gurdon resource officer starts when classes begin, August 21

Clark County Deputy Thomas Free, who has been a law enforcement officer for 18 years, will be the new Gurdon School System Resource Officer beginning this August.

This will be the first year for Gurdon to have a resource officer at the school. Free will be on duty during school hours and have an office on campus, and will attend extracurricular activities, such as football games.

Gurdon Superintendent Bobby Smithson said the project has been under consideration by the school, the Clark County Prosecutors Office and the Clark County Sheriffs Office for three years, "but federal money ran out for resource officers and financing was a problem."

Smithson said a few months ago the possibility of a resource officer being placed in Gurdon became more of a reality, as Charles and Anita Cabe, of the Cabe Foundation, took interest in the notion.

They used their influence on the Cabe Foundation Board and the project is being financed for the 2006-2007 school year by a $39,000 grant from the Cabe Foundation.

Several people were on hand Thursday, July 20, to welcome Free to his new job.

Charles Cabe said, "We think this is a very good project and we are glad to support it. Everybody involved with Cabe Foundation thought the resource officer for Gurdon was a good idea."

Clark County Sheriff Ray Wingfield also pushed hard to make the resource officer of Gurdon a reality.

Free will still be on call for the county, and will be available to respond if theres an emergency in the south end of the county.

"This is a good situation for us and Gurdon schools," Wingfield said. "If we can keep one kid out of the court system, its been worth it."

Free

Free has recently joined the Clark County Sheriffs Department. He has been employed for the Arkadelphia, Nashville and Murfressboro police departments, and has worked as a criminal investigator.

Free grew up in Hempstead County. He graduated high school at Blevins in 1976 and was certified from the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy in Camden in 1988.

Of the resource officers position at Gurdon, Free said, "I appreciate the job and I look forward to working with the children and the parents. I plan to be accessible to people. If there is a problem, I dont mind being called at home."

Free currently lives in Arkadelphia, but is considering moving to Gurdon.

He will attend training in Little Rock from Aug. 14-18. He will be on campus on Aug. 21 - the first day of class for Gurdon students.

Two at Arkadelphia

Wingfield said Clark County Prosecutor Henry Morgan has been instrumental in getting the new resource officer, and had helped place two resource officers in Arkadelphia.

"The interest in resource officers in Arkadelphia started coming on after the Jonesboro school shooting," Morgan said. "Our first resource officer in Clark County went to work nine years ago at Goza Junior High School. We got a government grant for that person for three years and in the fourth year the school system picked it up."

An officer was added to the Arkadelphia High School about five years ago.

"A resource officer gets to be a friend to the kids," Morgan said. "They trust him. Suddenly all police officers are not the enemy. The good kids end up telling us things we can use. For example, we have gotten information about sexual offenders who have been getting away with it with kids and that information has led to us doing investigations."

Morgan said he believes the officers have positively impacted the number of juvenile cases.

"Sometimes the officer has to go so far as to use (hand)cuffs on students to control a situation, but a definite impression gets made about the importance of order," Morgan said. "When authority is put into action, other kids remember that too. Soon a respect develops between the students and the officer."

Gurdon High School Principal Leonard Gills said the biggest discipline problems at GHS are tardiness and absences.

Morgan said the resource officer will police those things.

"If need be, we can drag their parents into juvenile court and fine them for not making sure their children are in school," he said. "Our hope for the future of a resource officer in Gurdon is to impress the school board and the Clark County Quorum Court enough that they are willing to work the cost of having one into their future budgets."