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New SRO at Great Bend Middle School
Officer Gavin Crawford already familiar with many GBMS students
Gavin Crawford SRO
Gavin Crawford is shown with the Great Bend Police Department DARE vehicle. Crawford is the new GBPD School Resource Officer at GBMS, along with Paul Millard at GBHS. - photo by photo by Susan Thacker/Great Bend Tribune

Gavin Crawford is the Great Bend Police Department’s newest School Resource Officer, taking over the position previously held by Ethan Thomas. During the school year, he will be based at Great Bend Middle School and SRO Paul Millard will continue to be based at Great Bend High School.

He’ll also be a DARE officer, teaching Drug Abuse Resistance Education at Eisenhower, Jefferson and Lincoln schools. He’ll be at Central Kansas Christian Academy and Holy Family School if needed. Millard will be the DARE officer at Park and Riley.

Crawford moved into his GBMS office on Monday and will be there to greet students when school starts on Thursday. He plans to start each morning at the middle school and then he’ll try to rotate to the other schools throughout the day.

A Great Bend native and graduate of Great Bend High School, Crawford later attended college and moved to Wyoming but returned four years ago to join the GBPD.

He recalls being in the 15-week DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) classes as a fifth grader at Eisenhower Elementary. In those days, its main message was “Say no to drugs.”

“It’s since changed to things like making good decisions, talking about peer pressure and bullying and tobacco use. It still covers drugs but it’s more about decision making,” he said.

Great Bend had DARE officers long before it added School Resource Officers to the police force. That started in 2015, after several school shootings nationwide.

Crawford attended two weeks of instruction for DARE officers last month in Oklahoma City and also attended SRO training this summer at Council Bluffs, Iowa. The DARE training program is one of the best trainings he has been to as an officer, he said.

He said he’s looking forward to working with students.

“I enjoy kids,” he said. “I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with them and hopefully setting some kids on the right path. Some kids don’t have the fortunate lifestyles other kids do, and some of them just need a little extra push.”

He already knows many of the students at GBMS because he’s attended some of the Pizza with the Police lunches they do on Fridays during the school year.