Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Sgt. Doug Light had one word to describe Camp HERO 2024 at Thursday evening’s graduation ceremony, and Sheriff Jim Smith agreed with him.
“I can sum up these three days in one word: Amazing. I can sum up the campers in one word: Amazing. That’s what these three days were,” Light said opening the ceremony as the emcee.

    Camp HERO got a SWAT demonstration from the Kosciusko County Special Operations Team Thursday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Camp Director KCSO Sgt. Justin Smith thanked all the families and friends of the campers for coming out to the graduation ceremony and allowing their kids to spend three days at the camp.
“We enjoyed it, probably more than you know or they know. It’s every bit as good for us as it is for them,” he said.
He thanked the many volunteers for Camp HERO (Honor, Excellence, Respect, Opportunity) because “there’s absolutely no way that this happens without them.”
He thanked the community, businesses and private donors as they are another one of the only reasons that Camp HERO happens.
“The sheriff decided that we wanted to make this free to the kids in our county. I agreed with him 100%. I’m glad that’s the case, but it takes our community to make that happen, and they knocked it out of the park like they always do,” Sgt. Smith said.
The number of campers this year is bigger than last year by about 50 kids, he said, and “I don’t think we even scratched the surface of the number of kids that attempted to get into here, so that number will probably grow some.”

    Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Det. Sgt. James Marshall (R) talks to Camp HERO campers about the gear the Special Operations Team wears, modeled by John Tice (L), Nappanee Police Department officer. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Sheriff Smith said, “We had a great week, and I want to thank all of you for allowing us and trusting us to be with your kiddos these last three days. Doug said it right when he said ‘amazing.’ The smile on these kiddos’ faces, watching them learn about the different pieces of emergency services, it does something to you. Not to mention that most of us in emergency services are probably just as much kids as they are.”
He said when he took office as sheriff he had two pieces of Camp HERO that he wanted to tweak. The first was the location to make it more centralized in the county to attract kids from all over the county. The second piece was that he didn’t want a $50 fee to be the reason a kid couldn’t attend the camp.
“Like Justin said, the only way we were going to be able to achieve that is partnering with the community and getting those donations, selling to them what we’re doing, let them buy in. And we’ve done just that,” the sheriff said. “And when I say ‘we,’ all I did was steer the ship. Justin ... this man right here is not giving himself enough credit. He has done an outstanding job of taking my vision and executing it and making it happen.”
He also recognized all of the volunteers, saying, “I’ll leave you with this: I just want each of you to know that the last few days, your kiddos were left with some of the most selfless, compassionate, caring people in their business. And I’d look each one of you in the eye and tell you that with complete confidence. That they all can be trusted with your kiddo and you, obviously, took that leap and trusted us with them.”
Awards were then presented to some of the campers.
Warsaw Police Department officer Paige Wood presented the Ironman awards to Micah Miller, senior division, and Michael Erb, junior division; and Ironwoman awards to Victoria Vuittonet, senior division, and Emery Brewton, junior division.

    Indiana State Police Trooper Derek Fisher is a bomb tech for the ISP’s bomb squad and an explosive dog handler. He is pictured with Remy. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

KCSO deputy Isaac Adams presented the Top Shot Award to Maxwell Metzger, junior division, and Emma Hunt, senior division.
The Jeffery B. Shaw Leadership Award was presented by officer Nick Shaw, Jeffery’s son, to Rain Adair. Sgt. Jeffery B. Shaw died on Nov. 12, 2009, at 2:47 p.m. in the line of duty.
The Phil Hochstetler Counselor of the Year Award was presented by deputy Andrew Hochstetler, one of Phil’s three sons, to deputy Joel Popenfoose. The end of watch for Det. Sgt. Phil Hochstetler, 31, was June 29, 1994.
Sheriff Smith presented the Sheriff’s Award for Excellent Camper to Mason Treesh.
All campers were then presented with their graduation certificates. A dinner, Kone Ice and a touch-a-truck event followed.
Final Day Activities
Earlier Thursday, the day began with a breakfast and then Camp HERO hearing from four presenters about safety, good choices and mental health. Those talks were followed by Kosciusko County SWAT and Indiana State Police bomb squad demonstrations and a rotation of learning stations.

    Tippecanoe Valley High School seniors Colton Crabb and Jetta Hughes (not pictured) talked to Camp HERO Thursday about Voice, an anti-vaping and anti-smoking club. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Thursday was the third and final day of Camp HERO. Tuesday focused on EMS, Wednesday was on firefighters and Thursday had a law enforcement theme.
In her presentation Thursday, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Kosciusko County Executive Director Erin Rowland Jones explained CASA has volunteers that help kids who may have been hurt by a parent or aren’t taken care of by their parents.
She talked about the different emotions a person feels like anger, sadness and joy.
“The problem is when we hold our emotions in, it’s harder to keep them in,” she said. “... So when you hold in your emotions, what can end up happening is that they explode. You react poorly. You haven’t dealt with it, you’re feeling awful.”
One way to stop that from happening, she told the campers, is for them to release their emotions and the best way to do that is to find a trusted adult to talk to.
Rowland Jones then transitioned to talking about secrets and the difference between secrets and surprises.
“When we talk about emotions and bottling them up, secrets make us feel a lot of emotions, too,” she said. “No one should ever ask you to keep a secret. So how do we know what is a secret and what just might be a surprise?”

    Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer Shaun Mudd talks to Camp HERO about bullying Thursday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Surprises are things that make others happy when they find them out. They also get to be revealed after a short period of time. There is no threat or negative consequences if you tell, she said.
“But secrets are different. Secrets are things that hurt you or somewhere else. They’re meant to exclude others. They can involve a threat, like ‘don’t tell anyone’ or ‘if you tell anyone, I’m going to hurt you or someone else.’ And secrets have no set end date. They just say don’t ever tell anyone. That is a big warning sign that you should tell a trusted adult about what you know,” Rowland Jones said.
Next up, Natalie Moore, with Live Well Kosciusko County, had Tippecanoe Valley High School seniors Colton Crabb and Jetta Hughes present on the club Voice.
“Voice is a program in your high school. It’s in Wawasee, Tippecanoe Valley and Warsaw right now. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be trying to get into more in the upcoming years,” Crabb said. “But it’s an anti-tobacco, anti-vaping group. It’s all about your actions you can do to stop the tobacco industry.”

    Camp HERO Director and Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Justin Smith speaks at Thursday’s graduation ceremony. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Indiana State Police Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Det. David Kewish talked to the kids about online safety.
Explaining ICAC, he said, “What that means is, everything you do online is monitored. ... So, there’s a federal law and what it does is it requires that every electronic service provider, i.e. Roadblocks, Discord, Twitter, Instagram, X, all that good stuff, that they have to scan their servers, i.e. the Cloud. Everything you guys share on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Discord, it is stored somewhere on a server. Somebody has access to it. That federal law requires that they have to scan their servers every so often, and if they find something questionable, they have to report it. Guess who it gets sent to? Me!”

    CASA of Kosciusko County Executive Director Erin Rowland (R) talks to Camp HERO about emotions and the difference between a secret and a surprise. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Kewish said when something gets flagged on social media, everything the person sent gets flagged and is stored, along with all relative information like IP addresses. He then has to send out a legal process and figure out the person’s information.
“So, my motto is, if you do not feel comfortable sending it to your mother, you should not be sending it to anybody. If you do not want your mom to read it, you should not be sending it to anybody,” he reiterated.
Kewish explained to the students how easily it would be for a stranger to find them based on some simple information. He told them that information put out on the internet never really goes away, it’s there forever. He encouraged the students to also be nice, in person and online.
Shaun Mudd, Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office school resource officer, talked about bullying and how and why he started Bowling Against Bullying in 2017 because of how an autistic Tippecanoe Valley student was being treated. From noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at The Bowling Alley, there is a free Bowling Against Bullying event.
CARES (Community Assistance Emergency Resources and Emergency Services) Coordinator Mikaela Bixler talked about how CARES responds if a person is in need of different resources like food, shelter, housing or a connection to a doctor.
“We deal a lot specifically about mental health because your mental health is just as important as your physical health, and your mental health and physical health are related. They affect each other,” she said.
Inside the Home & Family Arts Building, the students got to see a demonstration by the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Special Operations Team. Det. Sgt. James Marshall talked about what they do, how they do it, equipment and training.
Afterward they headed outside to the stands for a presentation by the Indiana State Police Bomb Squad. Trooper Derek Fisher is a bomb tech and an explosive dog handler, and he discussed his dog and the work they do together. Trooper Mike Lantz showed off the robot they use for SWAT applications and Explosive Ordnance Disposal.