This year, USD 204 has a new School Resource Officer, Officer James Watson. Officer Watson has had a long career history. He went into the military right out of high school in 1994 and served for 21 years as a 31 Echo – a military police corrections/detention officer. His job was to watch over military personnel inmates.

Watson grew up in De Queen, Arkansas and went to the high school of the same name. There were a few reasons he decided to go into the military after graduating.

“In the small town that I grew up in, there really wasn’t a lot of opportunities, so military and college was the way to go out,” Watson says, “I was an athlete in high school, but I had an injury my senior year, which kind of prohibited me from going to college and doing what I wanted to do so I joined the military.” Watson shares that he played football, basketball, tennis, and ran track.

It was in the military that Watson met his wife of 27 years, Teresa. They met at Fort Leavenworth and both had the same job within the military. The couple has three sons – Christian, 27; Benjamin, 25; and Andrew, 23. The story of their family is an interesting one, as they were both in active duty while also raising their children.

“We basically had to do tag team parenting,” says Watson, “So one of us was with the kids at a time while the other one was deployed or overseas. At one point in our career, we had only lived together about 18 months in seven and a half years.”

In honor of Veterans Day being last weekend, I asked Watson why, in his opinion, it’s important to honor veterans. “I don’t think that people really understand the sacrifices that veterans have gone through…the stressors of being in the military and being a veteran,” he says.

“People who have to put the needs of others above their own and their own family, I think they understand the stressors that come along with that. Whereas somebody who’s never had to move their family and miss holidays, vacations, and anniversaries and things like that, I don’t think those people can understand what veterans go through.”

I also asked Watson what Veterans Day is like for him personally. “For most veterans, Veterans Day is just another day,” he says, “But for veterans, the day that really hits home for them is Memorial Day…where most people are like, ‘Oh, it’s Memorial Day weekend we’re gonna go party’…for most veterans It’s not a happy time.”

After getting out of the military, Watson became a police officer in Leavenworth County from 2017 to 2018. In April 2019, he joined the Bonner Springs Police Department. Then, when the SRO position opened up in our district, he took it. He shares that he wanted to be “a sounding board for kids” and have more of an impact on children and young adults.

“If [students] want to come in my office and just talk, that’s something they should feel comfortable doing. I never want to have someone be afraid to come and talk to the police,” says Watson. “I want these young adults and the kids in the school district to be like, hey, our school resource officer’s pretty cool. We can talk to him. He’s there when we need him.” He shares that he likes to come to sporting events, even on his days off, to be there to support the players.

Watson’s experience with raising three boys through teenhood helps him in this job. He feels that he won’t be unprepared for anything that could happen at this school, having dealt with both his own and his sons’ high school years.

So far, he’s enjoyed just interacting with kids – talking to them about their interests, giving them high fives – and he keeps snacks and drinks in his office for anyone who wants to go in there and sit down. He likes having constant interaction with people, which he didn’t really get out on the road as a police officer.

“There are days where you don’t really interact with anybody and it’s usually in a negative light,” Watson says, “And I think here it’s more of the kids are just being kids.…They’re not interacting with you because you’re having to write them up for something or they’re in trouble for something. So I think for me, that’s a positive aspect of being in school.”

As an SRO in our district, Watson wants to have a positive reputation. He doesn’t want to be someone the students fear. “If I have to do my job, I’ll do my job but to me it’s not personal…I’m brand new. I don’t know any of these kids. So I want everybody to know that everybody has a clean slate with me.”

A fun fact about Officer Watson is that he likes to put food out for all the animals in his neighborhood, including squirrels, raccoons, deer, and foxes. He would even keep a wild animal as a pet if it was plausible. He shares that he has “not met an animal that [he] didn’t like.”

Watson has a message for the students of USD 204. “Focus on your studies. Be a good student, be a good person…treat everybody with kindness and respect. Be a good person and take that out into the world when you go…because I think right now that’s what we need.”