Safety goal of Vendy’s FCMS visit

  • Vendy, the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office K9 trained to detect drugs, checks a backpack at Fannin County Middle School under the watchful eye of her handler, Sergeant Jacob Pless. Vendy did a walk-through of the school Wednesday. Here, Vendy and Pless are in Cindi Barnes’ classroom.
    Vendy, the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office K9 trained to detect drugs, checks a backpack at Fannin County Middle School under the watchful eye of her handler, Sergeant Jacob Pless. Vendy did a walk-through of the school Wednesday. Here, Vendy and Pless are in Cindi Barnes’ classroom.

    “We want to make sure our schools are physically and emotionally safe for all our students,” Shannon Miller said last week.

    Miller, who is the executive director and upcoming superintendent of the Fannin County School System, was talking about a walk-through at Fannin County Middle School (FCMS) by Vendy, the sheriff’s office K-9 trained to find illegal drugs. A similar exercise was conducted at the high school earlier this year.

    Sergeant Jacob Pless and Investigator Dustin Carder of the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office brought Vendy to FCMS Wednesday at the request of school officials.

    Superintendent Dr. Michael Gwatney said the system wanted to let the students know Vendy would be back. Wednesday was to give the students an immunity day with a fair warning of the future, but if deputies had found drugs they would have taken action, Gwatney said.

    Pless steered Vendy through the halls and several classrooms. The walk-through was different from an actual search, which would have involved close scrutiny of lockers, backpacks and areas where drugs could be hidden.

    Realizing that illegal drugs, and the illegal use of legal drugs, exist within the community, Miller said school officials want to do everything possible to protect the system’s students.