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Angie Childers instructs students at the inaugural CSI: Youth Academy on collecting finger prints. Childers is the president of the Greer Police Department Alumni Association.
Childers who organized two new Greer police academies in 2012, youth and adults, was recognized as the Alumnus of the Year by the CPAA at its annual awards presentation. She earned the Greer Police Department Chiefs Award earlier this year.
It’s the second prestigious award for the Greer Police Department this year. Sgt. Chad Richardson was recognized as the Sud Paget Volunteer of the Year for the Greater Greer Chamber of Commerce in January.
“When they started to announce the next award Lt. Holcombe told us to get our cameras ready and we pointed them at the stage,” Childers said. “Someone started looking in our direction and I thought it would be another (Bridget Young) who went with us. I had no clue it would be me.”
“We look for people to get involved in the police department and in the community,” Holcombe said. “Angie did so much for our police department last year. Volunteers don’t get paid for what they do and we like to recognize them when we can.”
Greer Police Chief Dan Reynolds annually sends Holcombe, the director of the camps and the popular Citizens Police Academy produced twice a year, and the top police volunteers to the national convention.
Childers, president of the Greer Police Department Alumni Association, initiated the inaugural CSI Camp for high school students last year. Building off the success of that camp Childers assembled a curriculum for a camp for adults later in the summer.
“We have youth who had expressed interest in police work and I thought the CSI Camp would reaffirm what they wanted to do or they would decide this wasn’t something for them,” Childers said.
The 2013 camp, scheduled June 10-14 will add campers interacting with police officers. “I want them to spend more time with our officers and learn what they do. We will also produce a more life-like crime scene for (campers) to analyze what they have learned.”
Holcombe, in his nomination for Childers, said her plan illustrating the curriculum, cost and personnel hours needed, convinced Reynolds of the investment. Seventeen attended and earned certificates of completion. With that success came Reynolds suggesting the camp for adults that also proved successful and will lead into its second year.
“The adult camps went great,” Childers said. “It was a comparison on what they see on TV and what actually happens. It helps them understand the process and why it goes the way it does in the community.”