BILLINGS — While school is out for summer, one group of middle school students in Billings was back in the classroom. This time, they traded their books for badges in the Billings Police Department SRO Unit's inaugural summer camp for incoming seventh graders, Camp BLUE.
Watch the full video of students learning valuable lessons at Camp BLUE:
Held at Lewis and Clark Middle School, the week-long program, running daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., brings together 22 students from Billings School District and local Catholic schools, who were hand-picked by their school administrators as potential leaders. The camp gave students an inside look at law enforcement while instilling valuable lessons.
“It's just been one of these things we want to do something during the summer to continue to build those positive relationships with kids," said Tim Doll, Lewis and Clark School Resource Officer (SRO). "Real similar to like the education side of things, where you want to keep the kids reading, you want to have the kids doing math, we don't want to lose those relationships that we built throughout the year.”
Campers practiced everything from applying tourniquets and techniques to stop bleeding with lessons from Rocky Vista University staff to K9 unit demos, drone operations, SWAT and bomb team tactics, and crisis negotiation simulations. The students even got a special visit from Police Chief Rich St. John.
"We learned how to put tourniquets on each other and help people in need,” said Kamryn Stovall, a seventh grader at Castle Rock Middle School.
Stovall may need these learned skills in her future, as she dreams of one day being a detective. She said the experience helped deepen her passion for serving the community.
"I've always wanted to be something to help the community or something big. That's what I've wanted to do for my whole life," said Stovall. “I think it's gave me more passion to do this, and it's just gave me some more ways to help people in a lot of different ways.”
The camp is the brainchild of Doll, who worked for years to get it off the ground. Thanks to funding from several sponsors, Doll and seven fellow SROs from the Billings Police Department were able to turn their vision into reality.
“This is the best week ever," said Doll. "We wanted to take the idea of law enforcement, how we use teamwork, how we use leadership, how we train, and we just wanted to take that all into the idea of these students and building them up."
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By being open about their roles and the complexities of their careers, the officers were able to show a more human, approachable side of law enforcement, one that some students may not have seen before.
"We want them to understand we're just normal people. We're just out here to do our job," said Doll. "We're not in uniform. They get to see us in a different light. They get to see us participating in the activities. They get to see us playing with them, having fun with them, but then we also have serious sides where we have to kind of maybe lock things down a little bit."
Although the camp offers an inside look at the tools and tactics of policing, the bigger goal is personal growth and learning what BLUE stands for: Building Leadership, Unity, and Ethics.
"It's not just, here's what we do as cops. How can they take our skills and put them forward into the classrooms as well, and just their lives in general?” said Doll.
That philosophy resonated with students like Jeremiah Rogers, a seventh grader from Medicine Crow Middle School.
“(I learned) teamwork and leadership and all that good stuff, like how to work with other people. I’m not the best at that, but, I'm learning how to get better at it,” said Rogers, whose favorite lesson of the week was at the department's Armory. "I'm really glad that I did (join).”
By midweek, campers who started as strangers had quickly bonded into partners in crime prevention.
"I'm sure tomorrow there might be even some tears because they're losing a friend that they just bonded with for the last 40 hours basically, so it's a great experience for them. It's a great way to see the changes," said Doll.
“We all felt like we have known each other for years," added Stovall. "We all get along very well and it's just fun and enjoyable to be around these people."
The week wraps up with a graduation ceremony on Friday, but organizers hope this is just the beginning. Plans are already in motion to expand Camp BLUE in future summers to more age groups and the rest of Yellowstone County, giving more students the chance to join.
“Kids are learning to take the top role, but they're also learning to take a back seat and go, 'Hey, I'm not the best at this. I'm gonna let someone else kinda lead,' so that's kind of our goal is what we've seen all week," said Doll.
From developing friendships to learning life-saving skills, Camp BLUE has proved that there is still plenty to learn in the summer away from class.
“I think all of us came in thinking it was going to be a little boring and I think we've all made so much fun and we've had such a good time,” said Stovall.
