Spilling the tea with Sperry

Emory Anderson
Staff Writer
  Dan Sperry is the current student resource officer (SRO) at Bonneville High School (BHS) and has been doing this job for quite some time now. 
  He went to the academy in Colorado in 1998. After serving as an officer there for a while, he later transferred to Wyoming, where he also served as an officer. He eventually settled in Idaho in 2012, and his family has been here since. When he was in high school, being a cop was not on his radar; Sperry was thinking about becoming a chef. Before joining the police force, he also worked in construction, mechanics, and ranching. Wanting a change from his current job, which was ranching, Sperry decided to ask a few family members who were in law enforcement about the job. He eventually chose to pursue a career in law enforcement and attend the academy.
 For students who are interested in a similar career, there are a couple of ways to shadow him. Sperry personally thinks that he is “a boring person to shadow because he is in a school.” According to Sperry, “[They] can set them up to ride with patrol.” It is fairly difficult for someone under the age of 18 to ride since they still need to have a parental consent form signed. The explorer program is another thing that those under 18 can do. The explorer program “meet twice a month [and] once your passed your probation point [they] give you a uniform.” This is something that can be started at the age of 14 and gives people the opportunity to ride with the deputies. The difference between shadowing someone and the explorer program is that the explorer program goes more in depth. “Because they do meet twice a month, they do a variety of activities that are law enforcement related.” Some of the activities that have been done include going scuba diving, going to the range and having a demonstration with the bomb squad. Another activity that was done was that during the summer they went down to Lagoon. The explorer program helps out with the Fourth of July parade; along with that, they help out at the Civil War game. Sperry has been both a patrol officer and a SRO. Sperry has been an officer at a couple of other schools in Colorado and Wyoming. The areas that he worked in “were very rural and sometimes the schools would get a little [boring].” When this would happen he would patrol or teach D.A.R.E. if there was nothing happening around the school.
  Sperry has met some “incredible” youth here at BHS and Sperry loves the students here. He has seen a student go from making poor choices to graduating from Marine Corps Boot Camp early in the month of December. Being able to watch the successes of the students and see them grow up through high school is the most incredible thing to Sperry. When Sperry first became an SRO for Bonneville County the seniors of 2025 were in first grade. He read to some of them in early elementary.