A challenge to a race on the playground 33 years ago came full circle for the officer and student earlier this month.
The DARE program swept through schools beginning in the 80s but found its way to Covington in 1990. DARE, which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, was a program that put officers in schools for roughly 16 weeks to help prevent the use of controlled drugs. The Covington Police Department placed three officers over 11 elementary schools from 1990-1996.
Officer David Hampton was selected as one of those full-time DARE officers.
“It was great to be on the groundbreaking part of it,” Hampton said. “And the time I spent there, oh my gosh, how can you not like hanging out at school? In the classroom, eating cafeteria food, and running around the playground for your duty. How can you not like that?”
Hampton said Marty Turner challenged him to a foot race during recess in 1990, his first semester teaching the DARE program at Ninth District Elementary School. The moment happened to be caught on camera and published in The Cincinnati Enquirer.
Thirty-three years later, Hampton was visiting a local car wash when he heard someone yelling “Officer Hampton” at him.
“I knew it was him, and I said, ‘Hey Marty,’ and the first thing he said was, ‘You still got that picture?’ So, he remembered it,” Hampton said. “And I still had it at home, so two days later, I went back out there and took the picture to him, and we got a picture with that. He said, ‘Man, I’ve been telling my kids about you. Oh my gosh.’”
Turner was 12 in the photo and is now 45.
Turner couldn’t be reached for comment for this story.
Though Hampton no longer works for the Covington Police Department, he still works in law enforcement and has been with the Kenton County Sheriff’s Department for the past 17 years. He said he gets people coming up to him all the time, remembering him from their DARE days.
“Right after that picture was taken, that night I was at Kroger and had a girl come up to me and say, ‘Hey, Officer Hampton, I had you at Holy Cross,” Hampton said. “And I remembered her. How can you put a price on stuff like that in your career?”
He said the officers didn’t just speak to the classrooms during the DARE program; they also ate with them at lunchtime, played with them at recess, went on a field trip, or returned for a holiday party.
“They literally just break you down, and you just take that shield off,” Hampton said. “You know, you’ll be with kids who didn’t have a two-parent home where one parent was in trouble because of drug abuse. You had that all the time; you heard those stories all the time. The kids would open up to you because they trusted you.”
