POLICE OFFICER SAYS HE'S HUMBLED BY AWARD

MANCHESTER - Some police officers make their mark on the streets.
Bernie Hallums is doing it in the schools.

As a police officer at Illing Middle School, the 11-year veteran of
the Police Department has spent more than half his career mentoring
young students and giving them a safe environment in which to learn.

"We discuss anything," Hallums said this week, summarizing his job as
"just being there for whatever the kids need me for."

The Connecticut Elks Association is honoring Hallums on Saturday with
its prestigious Enrique Camarena Award for his work as a school police
officer and a former DARE instructor. Tickets are $12, and are being
sold at the Elks lodge at 30 Bissell St.

Lisa Berthiaume, the club's Esteemed Leading Knight, says in an email
that Hallums helped the lodge organize a movie night in November for
the town's fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-graders. The effort targeted
young students to teach them about the destructiveness of drug and
alcohol abuse.

"Bernie helped us plan and conduct the event, and he appeared in
uniform on that night to help us," Berthiaume says. "Because of the
success of this event, we hope to hold similar events going forward,
and, of course, have Bernie involved."

Each of the state's 35 Elks Clubs is allowed to nominate someone for
the award, and one winner is selected. Hallums now will be considered
for national recognition.

Hallums said he's humbled to receive the honor that's named after
Camarena, a widely known drug enforcement agent who died in 1985 while
working undercover in Mexico. During his life, Camarena infiltrated
drug-trafficking bands, breaking them up, and confiscating thousands
of pounds of cocaine and hundreds of thousands of pounds of marijuana.

"The person who this award is named after - wow," Hallums said. "He
was quite an individual. The kind of work he did is so important. My
way is to try to do it within the schools."

During the school day, Hallums said, he's on campus basically to
provide a safe learning environment and assist with school security.
But he also interacts with students each day, and uses his office as a
"safe haven" to talk with them about their problems.

Sometimes he nudges them in a different direction; other times he's an
outright mentor, giving pointers to those who are interested in law
enforcement as a profession.

Hallums stopped teaching the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE,
course several years ago, but he's been able to watch those he taught
as fifth-graders rise through the ranks of middle school and beyond.

"You hope they can keep some of the basic philosophy" of DARE, namely
that drugs and alcohol can be devastating, he said.

The Enrique Camarena Award will be presented Saturday at the Elks'
Bissell Street lodge. Hors d'oeuvres will begin at 6 p.m. with dinner
at 7 p.m.