'I just want them to have good days'
SULLIVAN, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — National School Resource Officer Appreciation Day is on Saturday, February 15 and to mark the occasion we're highlighting a local School Resource Officer (SRO) who goes above and beyond.
You don't have to be very far from the cafeteria at Sullivan Elementary School to hear the chatter and laughter filling the room. One of the voices is that of School Resource Officer Carl Melchert more affectionately known as 'Cop Carl.'
'How's lunch,' Melchert said to a group of students.
How's lunch seems like such a simple question, but for Cop Carl it's just the start of several impacting conversations with the students.
READ NEXT: Faith, BBQ, and the power of prayer
When Cop Carl walks the halls of Sullivan Elementary School, His infectious smile and his genuine care for each student is proof that he's not just there to enforce the rules.
'We think safety first, keeping the bad out,' Megan Raley, a Sullivan Elementary parent said. 'But it's being good within the walls too,' she added.
Carl's approach is simple but powerful. He treats every student, 'Like they're superstars,' he said.
He spends each day making sure to show the kids that they matter.
'I just want them to have good days,' Carl said. 'Because I don't know if they had good days outside of school.'
For parents like Megan Raley, Cop Carl was there for her children personally after losing their father to cancer.
At that time, her second-grade son struggled with returning to school. School drop-offs became difficult. During those dark days, it was Cop Carl who stepped in.
'He would come out to the parking lots with us and wait until it had settled down and walk him into the building,' Raley said. 'He would stay with him during school, eat lunch with him, make sure he was checked in on during the day, and had somebody there if he needed it.'
That meant the world to the struggling mother and child.
You want the best for your child, and as a parent, you know that you're their first choice at all times, so knowing there is somebody else there that they can depend on and go to that will be there for them and care for them as much as you do, really means a lot and you know they're in good hands,' Raley said.
In the months following, Officer Carl found himself relying on that same support of others.
'They (the school community) came together as soon as we found out Angie had ovarian cancer. The kids made cards,' Carl said. 'Without the support, it would've been a lot harder,' he added
Carl's wife, Angie lost her battle, and in that moment, Carl said he learned what truly matters in life.
'It's people that matter,' he said. 'And for kids, their feelings matter.'
Through the hardship, Cop Carl turned to God to continue making his students feel important.
'I ask him every day to help me to impact somebody and to help me have the right words,' Carl said. 'Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.'
You can ask any child at Sullivan Elementary, and you'll learn that the feeling is mutual.
'He's very talented,' Levi Lovelady, a fifth-grade student said. 'He teaches us a lot of stuff and he protects the school.'
'When you're feeling down, he'll ask 'What's wrong kiddo?' And you'll say it's nothing and he'll put a smile on your face,' 5th grade student Alexa Gibbs said.
'He's a good person, and you have someone to talk to and you have someone who can teach you how to solve something,' 5th grader Cooper Miller said.
From solving life's problems to solving a Rubik's Cube, Cop Carl meets students where they are with care and compassion to help them reach their full potential.
I could never in a million years thank him enough for what he did,' Raley said.
Officer Carl goes beyond the badge every day as an SRO. He also serves as the middle school girls' and boys' golf coach, the varsity boys' golf coach, and a substitute bus driver, but more than anything a friend.
'I'm a very blessed person and I don't ever want to take that for granted.'
Officer Carl's commitment to his students and community is a reminder of the positive influence an SRO can have. As we celebrate National School Resource Officer Appreciation Day, let's take a moment to thank all the men and women for their dedication as SROs.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
The Truth About the 'Titan' Sub Disaster: 'Baffling' Decisions, Their Final Moments and a 'Smoking Gun' (Exclusive)
Two years after the Titan tragedy killed five people, a clearer picture is emerging about what led to catastrophe and why no one averted it PEOPLE interviewed investigators as well as people who were close to the company behind the sub, some of whom are also featured in a new Netflix documentary 'It comes down to Stockton Rush. The decisions he made led to this. It was a cult of personality. If you went against him, you were likely to be out'Bonnie Carl remembers the text she received from a friend in June 2023: 'Have you seen? OceanGate's in the news.' Her heart sank. She suspected what had happened — and who had suffered for it: 'But I thought, 'Jesus Christ, I don't want to be right.' ' On June 18 the submersible Titan, built by Carl's former employer, the headline-grabbing exploration company OceanGate, went missing off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, as it headed 12,500 ft. beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean to the wreck of the Titanic. The world was gripped by the search for the strange vessel and its five wealthy passengers and crew, counting down the hours before oxygen would run out some two miles deep in ink-black water. Then, four days after it disappeared, shredded pieces of the 22-ft. sub were found on the ocean floor near the century-old resting place of the doomed liner it had sought. Titan imploded under the crushing weight of the sea, killing all four passengers along with OceanGate cofounder Stockton Rush, 61, who was piloting the vehicle. 'When they found the wreckage, it gutted me. It still does,' says Carl, breaking down in tears. 'I'm angry. This shouldn't have happened.' The fact that it did, however, seems to surprise no one who was close to OceanGate or to its ambitious — some say domineering — leader. Now, two years after the tragedy, as the U.S. Coast Guard is preparing to release its final report this month after extensive investigation, a clearer picture is emerging of what led to Titan's terrifying final moments — and why no one averted catastrophe. The USCG inquiry, along with a new Netflix documentary, Titan: The OceanGate Disaster, and PEOPLE's interviews with former employees and confidants of Rush, describes a fatally flawed submersible design made worse by carelessness, a charismatic leader whose dreams blinded him to his faults and a company culture of fear that kept the dangers hidden from the public. 'It comes down to Stockton Rush. The decisions he made led to this,' says Mark Monroe, director of the Netflix doc. 'It was a cult of personality. If you went against him, you were likely to be out.' Rush believed 'the rules didn't apply [to him] ... and that there's value in breaking them,' says Monroe. But 'there are also rules of physics and engineering — and those apply to all of us.' Titan When Bonnie Carl was hired as OceanGate's bookkeeper in 2017, 'it was my dream job,' she recalls. A Seattle native, Carl was a CPA who had fallen in love with sea life and scuba diving four years earlier, and OceanGate offered her the chance to help with dives at its Everett, Wash., headquarters, and to learn to pilot a sub from the company's director of marine operations, David Lochridge. Lochridge, a former diver in the U.K. Royal Navy who had become an expert pilot specializing in sub rescues, fixated on the water as a boy visiting his grandparents on the Isle of Cumbrae off the coast of Scotland. Like Carl and many other OceanGate employees and investors, Lochridge was intrigued by Rush and his mission to make sea exploration more accessible with less expensive vessels. 'Stockton was a visionary who was trying to democratize the abyss,' says Fred Hagen, a developer who made two trips to the Titanic on Titan. 'That was a noble cause.' Born into wealth and an ancestral line that stretched to the nation's founding, Rush — with piercing blue eyes, thick silver hair and a square jaw — carried an air of the patrician set. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in aerospace engineering, built and piloted his own plane and submersible, became a venture capitalist — and married the great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic. Rush started OceanGate in 2009 and later began working on a sub design made of carbon fiber, which is lighter and cheaper than the typical titanium or steel. Industry experts were skeptical the material could withstand extreme pressure. But Rush persisted, even after small-scale prototypes imploded. Some in the close-knit diving community believe he was certain that he'd make it work eventually—and make history too. 'Stockton took risks and lived outside the box,' Hagen says. 'And he paid for it with his life.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Immediately after Lochridge joined OceanGate in 2016, when Titan was still in development, he could see things weren't adding up: 'The emperor,' he says, 'had no clothes.' In his first meeting with Rush, the CEO declared he didn't want underwater communication equipment. 'I genuinely thought he was joking, but he was deadly serious,' Lochridge says. 'It blew me away.' Though Rush relented, Lochridge says his safety questions were 'always met with resistance.' Lochridge's unease grew as construction on Titan began. The vessel's end caps, made of titanium, were affixed to the hull with glue. 'Four guys ... were applying it with spatulas,' he says. 'There was nobody verifying there were no voids. It was like somebody putting icing on a birthday cake.' Worse, Rush refused to get the vessel 'classified,' or safety-inspected by an independent agency. 'It would have cost a lot of money,' Lochridge says. Carl saw the company was far from solvent: When an $800,000 check came in from a woman who signed up for a Titanic trip, she used it to pay outstanding bills. Lochridge's conflict with Rush erupted in January 2018, after he shared his concerns in an internal report. Rush — who Carl says idolized billionaire entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, referring to them as 'big swinging d----'—was furious at the perceived lack of loyalty. He told Lochridge, 'I'm sure the industry thinks I'm a f------ idiot. That's fine. ... But I'm not going to force people to join my religion.' He fired Lochridge and told Carl she'd be head pilot. 'Are you nuts?' she thought. 'I'm an accountant.' She left as well. Rush forged ahead with Titan, despite worrying signs from an onboard warning system that detected the sounds of carbon fibers popping, likely weakening the structure of the hull. 'If I'd heard noises like that in a sub, I would never go on it again,' says Lochridge. Rush, on the other hand, was promoting his project with infomercials and hired as a guide the renowned Titanic expert P.H. Nargeolet, whose 35-plus years of experience lent gravitas to the venture. By 2021 OceanGate started taking its sub to the Titanic and charging six-figure tickets per person to join as a 'mission specialist' — a safety work-around 'to have passengers appear to be crew,' says the Coast Guard's Jason Neubauer, who was preparing to retire when he decided to lead the Titan probe. The company also skirted regulation by not 'flagging,' or registering, Titan with a country. The sub continued with dives in 2022, and the carbon fiber pops grew more frequent, culminating in a crack that year loud enough to be heard by the surface crew, according to Neubauer. 'That data was completely ignored,' he says, likening the decision to a 'smoking gun.' Instead of investigating, OceanGate left Titan in a parking lot for most of the winter, where it was covered by snow. 'It was baffling,' Neubauer says. 'Especially since carbon fiber is susceptible to the elements.' After more than six months outside, Titan was back in use in 2023. On the morning of June 18, Rush was joined for another expedition by Nargeolet, 77, businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, and explorer Hamish Harding, 58. Just over 90 minutes into their descent, as Titan drew close to the Titanic and said it was shedding weight, they lost contact. Seconds later Rush's wife, Wendy, who was on the support ship, heard a boom. Investigators now believe it was the implosion — a calamitous crunch. Weeks after that, remote-operated vehicles recovered remnants from inside the sub, much of which had been compressed into what one investigator termed 'sludge.' Among the identifiable artifacts: a scrap of Rush's diving jumpsuit and 'Titanic Expedition' stickers. Little else remained of the man who promised to open up the oceans' dark depths to the world — or the passengers killed in his attempt. 'I still question it every day: How could he not see this was dangerous?' Carl says. 'In my opinion, he clearly wanted fame. Stockton had his mind set. He was going to do this no matter what.' Read the original article on People
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Ohio Blvd Project discussion continues
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV)— Dozens of residents attended the Terre Haute City Council Thursday night, as they discussed the proposed Ohio Boulevard Project. Brickyard Estates and Paddock at the Park is a proposed $70 million project. It will include single family homes and multi family units located between Ohio Boulevard and Edgewood Grove. The homes are slated to be part of 93 home subdivision of 1600 square feet and with a price between $350,000 to $400,000. There will also be 11, three story apartment complexes. Many residents voiced they agree with the housing side of the project, but not the apartment side. 'This proposal, the money it will need to be paid back over a 20 year span. And knowing that 20 years from now, think about what those apartments potentially could look like and how they may downgrade and be a detraction from the jewel of Ohio Boulevard and Deming Park,' Resident Heidi Isaia said. The proposal was tabled until June 12th. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Sullivan County to host Southwestern Indiana Adoption Event
SULLIVAN COUNTY, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Local animal shelters across the Wabash Valley will team up to help many animals find their forever homes. The Sullivan County Humane Society is hosting the 2nd annual Southwest Indiana Adoption Event on Saturday, June 7th at the Sullivan County 4-H Fairgrounds. The event will feature a variety of dogs and cats from at least six animal shelters and rescues from around the area. 'It's very important to bring shelters and rescues together because we do not compete against each other,' said Julie Tow, President of the Sullivan County Humane Society. 'We're a coalition, and the main goal is to get these animals adopted into forever homes.' The event begins at 11 a.m. and will run until 4 p.m. Pet adoption fees at the event will be $50 for dogs and $25 for cats. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
