When Joseph West was in high school at Bauxite, he would spend his time “running around Benton, just like any other high-schooler.”
“There were these two officers in particular; they would just interact with us and basically showed me they were there to help and not there against us,” West said. “That kindness they showed us is what leaned me more toward this.”
West was recently hired as the school resource officer for the Harmony Grove School District in Haskell, the first in the school’s history.
“I have wanted to be a police officer ever since I knew what one was,” West said. “This was an opportunity to really make a difference in a child’s life.
“I know when I was a kid, a lot of people I looked up to were police officers, and that is a lot of the reason that I’m doing what I’m doing now.
“I’d like to have the same influence on the next generation.”
West, who graduated from Bauxite High School in 2010, has been a reserve officer with the Haskell Police Department since April 2016. He said being a reserve officer is “pretty much the same concept as a volunteer firefighter.”
“You are doing everything the full-time people are; you just aren’t getting paid for it,” West said. “My ultimate goal was to work toward getting a full-time spot.”
West, who recently moved to Haskell with his fiancee, Katlyn Henderson, said he is excited and nervous about the new opportunity.
“In today’s society, there are a lot of people who really don’t like the police,” West said. “I want these kids to see we are the good guys and not the bad guys.”
Heath Bennett, the new superintendent for the school district, said bringing West on board was one of the first things he wanted to do in his new role.
“Right after I was hired, I started talking to board members about the possibility of us having a school resource officer,” Bennett said. “Nothing at all has happened at Harmony Grove School District that jumped out at me, ‘Oh you have to have one.’
“I just think at this day and time and schools period, it is better to have one than not to have one.”
Bennett, who is originally from the White Hall School District, said it had six campuses
and had a school resource officer on every campus.
“The biggest thing is just for his presence to be seen and to basically make sure all of our kids feel safe,” Bennett said. “If you don’t feel safe, then it is going to be real hard for our kids to learn.”
Chad Withers, the principal at Harmony Grove High School, said there wasn’t anything that stood out to him as a concern to get an officer in the school.
“I think the biggest thing is we want our kids to have respect for law enforcement,” Withers said. “Having him on campus and being here involved in things that are going on, being another set of eyes for certain things, is going to be tremendously helpful.
“There was nothing that scared us into doing something like this; it is just something that is going to be good.”
In most cases, when hiring a school resource officer, the district pays half the salary and the police department will pay the other half. But unknown to Bennett, the city had passed a sales tax that will pay West’s salary.
“It was just a blessing that it had been passed,” Bennett said.
He said the district would have found a way to hire West either way.
“The school board wants what’s best for the kids and the community,” Bennett said. “We have a great working relationship with the mayor and the police chief to have our kids as safe as they can be.”
He said there were numerous applicants for the position, and the district interviewed four.
“The best candidate was Mr. West,” Bennett said. “He had been a reserve policeman and had worked with the police chief and the city of Haskell.
“Not every candidate had the experience already, so that was a huge plus for us. He knows the area, and he knows Saline County.
“His work ethic is going to be really good and is what we needed in the role.”
Next summer, once school is out, West said, he will report to a police academy to receive additional training for the position. He has already taken a couple of online classes and plans to shadow resource officers in the Benton School District.
“I know several of the officers there; they are the reason I became a police officer in the first place,” West said. “So I thought about maybe shadowing them some.”
Bennett said he hopes to have West an office on campus by the time school starts on Aug. 14.
“Some of these younger kids are going to look at him as their hero; that is just the way it is,” Bennett said. “As you get into junior high and high school, however, kids don’t like the police or might have a different attitude for whatever reason.
“That is definitely something we want to work on — the relationship between Mr. West and the kids.
“He is there for them. He is not up here to get anybody in trouble. He is here to prevent fights and keep everything as calm as can be.”
One thing Bennett wants to make clear to parents and the community is that “[West] is not here to scare anybody or anything like that.”
“A principal can only do so much, and West is just one more set of eyes,” Bennett said. “It is a working relationship with everybody involved.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.