Andrea Macko is reporting for Porcupine Soup Cairo Police Officer Thomas Plank announced September 25, at an event in Angelo Canna Town Park in Cairo, the DARE. program in Greene County is coming to an end because he is retiring. Plank’s law enforcement career began in 1980 when he was hired as a corrections officer in the Greene County Jail. In 1982 he was hired as a Greene County sheriff’s deputy and in 1990 became a DARE officer, completing training to work with elementary, middle, and high school students. DARE stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. The program was established by Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates and the LA Unified School District as a strategy within the so-called War on Drugs. DARE workshops are conducted for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The program today focuses on bullying, cyber-bullying, suicide prevention, domestic violence, the opioid epidemic, mass shooting awareness and human trafficking. “Over the years I’ve worked in Cairo and Durham, back when there were two elementary schools, Greenville, Windham and Hunter,” Plank said.He retired from the Sheriff’s Office back in 2002 but stayed on part-time. He is currently employed by the Cairo Police Department and teaches at Cairo-Durham. “I have been blessed to be able to do what I do...,” Plank said. “I am certainly going to miss this.” Read the full story at porcupinesoup [dot] com.