23 young people from across Kentucky comprised the inaugural Kentucky State Police Youth Academy. A graduation ceremony for the group of 15-to-18-year-olds followed the week-long experience this month on Trooper Island in west Kentucky. Elizabethtown KSP Public Affairs Officer Scotty Sharp said the participants got a taste of cadet academy life.
“So, they got up in the morning at 5:30 in the morning and PT’d for about an hour..starting at six. They had to make their bunks, keep their living quarters clean. Course we had inspections just like we do at our real academy for cadets,” said Sharp.
Sharp said the daily sessions for the Youth Academy members covered a variety of topics including accident reconstruction, canine work, and detective investigations. Sharp noted the academy does act as a police recruitment tool.
“We can’t just wait for them to graduate high school and either choose military, college, or something like that. We have to kind of, just like a lot of other industries have to or start to do in reaching out to high school students and get them while they’re young,” said Sharp.
Sharp said the State Police has an apprenticeship program where high school graduates could start as dispatchers the summer following graduation. Sharp noted other sessions during the Academy covered farm safety, e-crimes, and critical incident response along with game time and competitions. The trooper added there are plans to hold the second Academy next summer.
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