Scott Einberger, park guide from the National Park Service, shows fifth graders Robert Gonzalez, left, and Abraham Heredia an illustration of what NPS helps the nation protect Friday during Bliss Elementary’s Career Day. Photo by Stephen Baack.

Bliss Elementary students meet local professionals at Career Day

Stephen Baack

Monitor Staff 

About 200 children from the third, fourth and fifth grades at Bliss Elementary took part in Career Day at the school Friday, during which they met people from more than 15 different professions throughout El Paso.

Students tried on a flak vest courtesy of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, talked to an FBI special agent, greeted a dog from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, took fingerprints with the District Attorney’s Office, interviewed an El Paso Police Department officer and learned about the water system from a member of El Paso Water Utilities.

Lupe Mares-Edens, a public affairs and economic education specialist from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, El Paso Branch, even handed out small bags of shredded money while telling students about her job.

Fielding questions about where all the money comes from and why they destroy it took up a portion of her visit, but educating students about other missions the Federal Reserve has was also part of her goal.

“We deal with monetary policy, banking supervision and financial services,” she said. “We provide the money, but with everything that’s going on right now with the economy, it’s very important that they learn. … These little visits are really too short for me to explain everything, but that is our goal: to educate our students about the U.S. economy.”

With law enforcement in full force at the event, officers covering a wide variety of ground had plenty of opportunities to send positive messages.

“A lot of it is that anti-drug message – saying no to drugs, and letting them know that there are people out there who play an important role in protecting our country – and in different aspects, with ATF, FBI and Customs,” said Bernie Moreno, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer.

Moreno said that message is particularly important for children because Customs officers see teenagers being used to smuggle drugs across the border on a daily basis. During his visit, he talked about his equipment and showed off his dog – a popular attraction at Career Day.

“We want to get that anti-drug message across, and let them know that the job we do is an important job – it’s a necessary job,” he said. “At the same time, it’s fun for us and it’s something that, maybe in the near future, they might want to look a little deeper into.”

For EPPD Police Officer Slade Davis, his message was pushing aside misconceptions about being on the police force. Davis stressed how many people have the impression that police officers frequently shoot at people, are often shot at themselves and get into frequent physical altercations.

“Everybody has a bad day,” Davis said. “I’ve never shot at anybody and I’ve never been shot at. I’ve been in two fights since I’ve been in the department. The one thing I tell them, though, that the best weapon on your whole, entire gear is not what shoots or kills people – it’s your brain. … That’s why I’ve never shot at people, and that’s what I hope they understand.”

Spearheading the event was campus security officer Bonnie Logsdon, who said she mainly targeted those professions less visible to the public or which aren’t everyday topics. She said she refrained from picking Soldiers or firefighters for this reason, and chose officers of the ATF, Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“A lot of kids don’t realize that Customs and Border Patrol are actually two different things. I didn’t know that,” she said with a laugh.

Logsdon said the event turned out great, and said she was surprised at how many people visited on their day off to talk to the students.

“Our mission was to show these kids at this age in elementary so they can start looking toward, ‘Hey, you know what, I remember this from elementary. I want to become that type of person,’” she said. “Nowadays you’ve got to start working at it back in middle school. So we want to hit them before they get to middle school, so that way they have a clear idea, so to speak, of what they want to do.”