A special day

Today I was proud to go to Springfield with Drew and see him receive an award in recognition of all the work he has done with the Tazewell Teen Initiative! This group is made up of primarily local law enforcement and government officials ... and Drew fits into the mix as the President of the Tazewell County Youth Board. The Initative was formed to address the large number of teen driving deaths that occurred in our County over a 15 month period. Fortunately, that trend has stopped and no Tazewell County teens have been lost in the past year.

He received the "Award of Distinction" from the Director of the Illinois State Police at their Award Ceremony this afternoon. Other members of the Initiative who received an award were the Tazewell County Sheriff, Tazewell County Coroner, an IDOT representative, and a woman from the Tazewell County Health Dept. He was definitely the only kid in the room receiving an award, and there were very few recipients outside of the IL State Police ranks.

As soon as the ceremony was over he was swarmed by a few reporters wanting interviews. One was IL Radio Network and is an audio spot that will run on talk radio around the state, I think ... but the other lady was writing a story that may appear in tomorrow's Peoria paper. So we'll see if he gets a mention there or not.

We're very proud of Drew and the passion he has found for this effort. It's wonderful to see him thinking outside of the bubble of school and his friends, and moving on to thinking about making his overall community a better place.