Vantage Police Academy class graduates

VW independent/submitted information

The Ohio Technical Center of Vantage Career Center recently celebrated the graduation of seven students from the Police Academy.

These students participated in 10 months of a rigorous course of study that saw them attending class four nights a week and many Saturdays to complete 700 hours of training in a wide variety of Peace Officer skills.  These include Human Relations, Firearms, Driving, Investigation, Physical Conditioning, Traffic and Homeland Security among others.

According to Bruce Showalter, commander of the Vantage Police Academy, this was an outstanding class, the first ever to have 100 percent passage rate on the physical conditioning portion of the curriculum on the first attempt.

Furthermore, despite the intensity of the training and the demanding schedule, three of the seven students had perfect attendance.

Kameran Clemons of Oakwood took the top academic and physical conditioning awards for the class, while Elijah Wortman of Convoy and Samuel Nickols of Paulding joined Clemons in earning a perfect attendance award.

Commander Showalter, who has served as Police Academy commander for the past 15 years, also announced his retirement from the position. Showalter was given a plaque thanking him for his service by Kit Tyler, Ohio Technical Center director, and Pete Prichard, former OTC director.