Chief Hodge confirms commitment to school officer

By Reed Anfinson

Benson Police Chief Ian Hodge met with the District 777 Board of Education Monday night to confirm his department’s commitment to providing a school resource officer.

“We are coming up on our 20th year of having this partnership between the Benson school system and the Benson Police Department,” Hodge said. It is one of the longest relationships between a school district and the local police department in the area and in the state, he said.

“It has been a fantastic program,” Hodge said. “The security of the children in our school system is of utmost importance to me and it is of the utmost importance to my officers. It is something that we take very seriously and have a lot of pride in.”

It isn’t just pride in being able to protect the kids, he said, it is also the ability to create some “fantastic relationships.”. Some of those relationships have been short term while students are in school, but others are lifelong, he said.

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