O'Dell named Mo. D.A.R.E. president

By NOREEN HYSLOP

Managing Editor

A local police officer will be heading up the D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program on the state level for the 2012-2013 school year. Longtime D.A.R.E. educator on the Dexter Police Department, Lori O'Dell, has been named to serve as president of the D.A.R.E. organization. She officially began in the new role on Aug. 3 and will serve until July 2013. O'Dell has served in the capacity of vice president for the past year and was a regional representative prior to serving in that role.

O'Dell is a familiar face to school students in Stoddard County. She has worked in fifth grade classrooms across the county since 2006 to empower students to lead safe and healthy lives, free of violence, alcohol, and drugs.

D.A.R.E. was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles and has proven so successful that it is now being implemented in 75 percent of our nation's school districts and in more than 43 countries around the world.

The program is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons that teaches children at the fifth grade level in Missouri to resist peer pressure and live productive, drug and violence-free lives.

D.A.R.E. goes beyond traditional drug abuse and violence prevention programs. It gives children the skills needed to recognize and resist the subtle and overt pressures that cause them to experiment with drugs or become involved in gangs or violent activities.

The coming year will be a bit more challenging for O'Dell in her role as D.A.R.E. educator.

"We have a brand new curriculum coming this year," O'Dell explains. "Making responsible choices is still key in the curriculum, but we will also be talking about bullying in the classroom. The issue of bullying is an ever-increasing problem in the public school setting, and we'll be addressing that this year."

In her new role, O'Dell will be presiding at all meetings of the Missouri D.A.R.E. Officers' Association (MDOA) and all Executive Board meetings. She will represent MDOA as well on the state level in the media and as determined by the Executive Board.

"My personal goal," says O'Dell, "is to be able to teach D.A.R.E. in every school that wants it in the county, and as president, my vision is to create a new network for all D.A.R.E. officers in the state of Missouri."

There is currently no database linking the state's D.A.R.E. officers together.

"We have a lot of information worth sharing, and I think this would be a great opportunity to accomplish a shared networking system among the officers."

D.A.R.E. is viewed as an internationally recognized model of community policing. The United States Department of Justice has commended the D.A.R.E. program for helping communities in a number of ways, including acting to "humanize" the police by allowing young people to relate to them easier, by allowing students to see officers in a helping capacity and not just an enforcement role, by opening a line of communication with police officers, and by opening a dialogue between school, police, and parents to deal with other issues.

"I look forward to representing the city of Dexter at the state level," O'Dell says, "and the challenges that this new role will bring."