Thursday, December 11, 2008

Terry Polston - Hero

Our community suffered a great loss last week with the death of our beloved D.A.R.E. Officer Terry Polston. He touched thousands of lives, and each of us has one or more precious memory of him.

Mine came the night of my daughter's D.A.R.E. graduation and Officer Hawn selected her essay for her to read at graduation. She talked about how her dad's alcoholism has affected all of our lives and helped her to see what choices she should make. I was standing along the wall, tears streaming down my cheeks, Officer Polston came over to me, put his arm around me and whispered "Just be proud, Mom, be proud of your little girl, she is a fine young lady." I know am only one of thousands of parents that he reassured and comforted. He was a wonderful man and our community has truly suffered a great loss, but his legacy of love will live on.

Continue to keep his family in your prayers now as the dust settles and they are left with a big empty space in their lives going into the holiday season. I know he would not want them to be sad, but it will be so difficult for them.

3 comments:

AWB said...

Wow, I'm still crying.

It's a real shame that many departments are dropping their D.A.R.E. programs. Officer Polston will be truly missed in your community. My prayers to his family.

JR - A Green Eyed Gurl.... said...

The narrator for that video is his brother Randy Polston. Randy is a principal at Harrison Elementary, he is also a truly wonderful man, the entire Polston family is a blessing to our community.

Katie@ThisCrazyLife said...

This was a great post. Though I never knew him I knew his family and my brother and sister had him as their DARE officer. As for the babysitting as far as I know it went great. My kids are a mess right now cuz they had a sitter sat and sun and then all day mon and tues while I helped mom and dad move. we have another Christmas party this weekend and after that I am hoping to stay home for a while. Why is it that babysitters make them all crazy and then they think they can just not behave? Oh well, they will readjust. Next time I need a sitter I'll let Kelsay know!