Glenn Rolfe Archives - The Journal

With Sussex roots, Miss Delaware 2015 set to embark on mission of volunteerism

Jun 24th, 2015 · Comments:

MILFORD — Brooke Mitchell’s career plan is to be a teacher.

Following her June 13 crowning as Miss Delaware 2015, those plans are on hold.

There’s a more pressing matter: serving the First State as a high-profile ambassador.

“I am definitely going to take a year off so I can focus solely on this – and being prepared for Miss America as much as possible,” said Ms. Mitchell.

Ms. Mitchell has a number of ties to Sussex County.

She was raised in Dagsboro.

Her current residential roots are planted in Selbyville.

A product of the Indian River School District, Ms. Mitchell attended Indian River High School before transferring to Sussex Central her senior year.
She attends Delaware Community Technical College in Georgetown, teaches dance at Cheryl’s Dance Alley in Millsboro and competed at the Miss Delaware pageant as Miss Milford.

“So I am from Selbyville right now. I grew up in Dagsboro … and I represent Milford …,” she said.

Ms. Mitchell, 19, just finished her first year at Delaware Technical Community College in Georgetown, majoring in elementary education.

“I want to be a teacher,” said Ms. Mitchell. “I am currently a dance teacher so I know that I have always wanted to work with kids. Even when I was as kid, I loved kids. It’s something that I just love: talking to them, helping them learn and exploring their futures with them.”

Ms. Mitchell is no newcomer to the pageant circuit, first taking the stage at age six. She has held all three Sussex County pageant titles, was the 2014 Delaware Sweetheart and competed in the Miss American Coed which earned her a trip to Florida.

“All of this has led up to Miss Delaware, because I have watched the pageant since the year 2000. I haven’t missed a crowning. These girls have all been role models to me,” said Ms. Mitchell. “I knew that is what I wanted to do when I was old enough to compete. Last year was my very first year – and I was first runner-up. So it was kind of shocking to me seeing the ‘baby’ as they called me make it so far.”

Her pageant platform is volunteerism, something she experienced in her first pageant.

“And I won,” Ms. Mitchell said. “My very first appearance was at the Make-A-Wish Triathlon in Bethany Beach. So that was the very first volunteer activity that I did, and I loved it. I got to help out a great cause, and we actually ended up serving ice cream cones to the runners … so it got a little messy.”

As Miss Delaware, Ms. Mitchell is dedicated to being a good role model, sharing in particular a positive, motivational message with children and kids.

“You need to be confident in yourself. When I was younger I wanted Miss Delaware so much. I kept working toward that goal at such a young age,” she said. “I think it is important for kids to know that anything is possible for them in the future as long as they work really hard for it. I’ll be talking to them about self-confidence, how to work toward their goals. And I will be promoting my platform and hoping to get as many of them involved in volunteerism as possible.”

At the Miss Delaware pageant, her talent was baton twirling, a routine she choreographed.

“The reason I twirl is because I can incorporate baton and dance into the routine,” she said.

At the Miss America pageant, set for Sept. 13 at the Atlantic City Convention Center, she hopes to rock the stage with a tap-dance routine.
In preparation for Miss America, she is aiming to fit the fitness mold with training at Cross Fit in Dover – and her boyfriend, Troy Wolford, who currently is serving with the Delaware National Guard.

“I just met my trainer at Cross Fit … I’ll be working with him a lot,” said Ms. Mitchell. “When I am not in the Dover area – when I am home – I’ll be working out at World Gym. My boyfriend is actually my trainer.”

Ms. Mitchell resides with her mother in Selbyville, not far from Miss Delaware 2012 Alyssa Murray, who at the 2013 Miss America pageant in Las Vegas received the Miss America Organization Non-Finalist Interview Award and was one of seven finalists for the 2013 Miss America Quality of Life Award, which recognizes enhancing quality of life of others through volunteerism and community service.

No contestant from Delaware has ever won Miss America.

So the stage is set.

“I hope it is going to be a great year,” Ms. Mitchell said. “I am going to work really hard for Delaware and I hope to represent them to the best of my ability.”

Heroin Epidemic Series: Law enforcement handcuffed in combating heroin epidemic

May 27th, 2015 · Comments:

SOUTHERN DELAWARE — A decade ago, heroin rarely made the police blotter.

Arrests occurred about as often as a blue moon.

These days, heroin is the drug of choice — an extremely addictive opiate that has fueled a crime wave, encompassing robbery, burglary, home invasion and other criminal activity.
Town of Ocean View Police Chief Ken McLaughlin says there has indeed been a huge increase in arrests and crime-related incidents tied to heroin.

“Yes, I’d say it’s probably a 10 fold increase. I took over as the chief in May of 2001. As far as I can recall we probably went a good decade – we probably logged no more than two heroin arrests in a decade,” said Chief McLaughlin. “Now, it’s not unusual to have two a week, or more than a week. It has been a huge increase. Recently, we made an arrest … literally less than 200 yards from the police station.”

It’s a similar scenario in neighboring Selbyville and also Georgetown.

“A vast majority of our burglaries are tied to heroin,” said Selbyville Police Chief Scott Collins. “The drug of choice has certainly gone from prescription pills to heroin right now. The bulk of our drug arrests right now are heroin – and marijuana. It’s an epidemic, without a doubt.”

“All we used to deal with is crack and marijuana. For the past three years it has mostly been heroin,” said Georgetown Police Department spokesman Lt. Lawrence Grose. “It is mainly due to the crackdown on the pain pills, which are basically a synthetic heroin. Now that it is harder to get the pills the addicts have gone back to the basics, which is heroin. It has ruined a lot of people’s lives.”

That trend echoes statewide across Delaware.

In 2005, Sussex and Kent Counties combined 10 arrests for heroin possession, said Delaware State Police Lt. Charles Sawchenko III with Troop 3 in Dover.

“In 2014, there were 828 charges – a dramatic increase,” said Lt. Sawchenko. “In the 1970s and 1980s heroin was more of an urban drug. Now you see heroin a lot more rural and suburban areas.”
Lt. Sawchenko, who transitioned to Delaware State Police in 1995 after a tenure as a social worker, counselor and therapist, said law enforcement is somewhat handcuffed in combatting heroin and illegal drug use.

“We arrest users all of them time,” said Lt. Sawchenko. “It’s only a misdemeanor so they post bond and they’re off and running.”

And more often than not they’re fixed on running right back to the street.

“In my opinion law enforcement for the most part is pretty good. We’ve got good police forces in the state of Delaware. We’re pretty effective for the most part when it comes to combatting the drugs,” Chief McLaughlin said. “The problem that we have is when we do get folks in there that are incarcerated – if we can get them in jail – they need to have treatment before they are released. And then there needs to be follow-up treatment afterwards. And that is simply not available for the most part.”

Heroin addiction is devastating people young and old, destroying family unity and its criminal collateral effects continue to make police news, said Jim Martin, a recovering addict who has established nearly two three-quarter houses, is founder of the A.C.E. (Acceptance Change Empowerment) Peer Resource Center/Haven at the Peer Residence and is among the facilitators of the revived Sussex County Action Prevention Coalition.

“We’re talking about crime. I believe that people are going to be held up for five bucks, shot in their cars for $5, and for loose change,” said Mr. Martin. “There is a thing called dope sickness; it comes over the heroin addict and they can’t think of anything else but solving that problem. They’ll let their babies starve. They are so concerned about dope sickness; it completely takes over their brain. That’s why they steal. That’s why the petty crimes have gone up.”

Chief McLaughlin said he and his department witness first-hand the heartbreaking impact of heroin addiction.

“I’ve got one young lady locally that we deal with quite a bit that … depending on what day of the week it is … she’s recovering addict, but she falls off the wagon quite a bit,” Chief McLaughlin said.

“She has told me that she got started – she would have never started using heroin – but she went to buy some marijuana from a guy for herself and her girlfriend … he said ‘I don’t have any but I have got this, try this.’ He told her how to snort it. They snorted it. She said she was hooked from the first day. It’s creepy to hear her tell her story because it just amazes me that something could have that much control over you. She had three young children and she just walked away from them. Literally dropped them off and walked away from them. And she’s a decent person. She’s not a bad person. It just scares the hell out of me that something could have that much control over somebody.”

Chief McLaughlin said people battling addiction demons regularly come into the police station asking for help.

“We get on the phone and start calling and calling …,” Chief McLaughlin said. “We had one young lady in here not too long ago, she was begging for help. She said, ‘If I leave I’m going to go get some dope and shoot up.’ We wound up having to get her committed on a psychiatric evaluation, to get her in the hospital somewhere to get her off the streets. But that really wasn’t her problem. She needed drug and alcohol counseling, not a psychiatric evaluation.”

“It’s an uphill battle,” said Chief Collins.

Heroin Epidemic Series: Heroin in crosshairs of anti-drug coalition

May 25th, 2015 · Comments:

SUSSEX COUNTY — Jimmy Martin and Dan Southern know all about addiction.

Six years ago, Mr. Martin says he was “living in the woods” all over Sussex County.

“Opiates and alcohol,” said Mr. Martin. “I’ve been clean 6 1/2 years. I’ve learned it the hard way.”

The addictive vice for Pastor Southern were pills and booze.

“I was addicted primarily to pills, uppers – things like that – and marijuana. I was an alcoholic … whatever I could get my hands on to get myself high,” said Pastor Southern. “I didn’t use heroin. I was always a little bit afraid of that. That wasn’t even the main drug of choice back in those days.”
But it is today’s word, and the two recovering addicts who learned the hard way are among the facilitators of the Sussex Coalition Action Prevention Coalition – a re-energized anti-drug effort rooted in Southern Delaware that has joined the battle against the heroin epidemic.

“It’s two-pronged,” said Mr. Martin, SCAPC’s chairman. “We’re going after the agencies, and then the kids in the schools. We need to do a better job engaging the schools.”

“This thing I believe is in the early stages. We’re like in the shallow part of the pool as far as what this heroin epidemic is going to do our society … 5, 10, 20 years out. I believe there is a tsunami of like a 30-foot wave coming, and it’s going to sweep over the state of Delaware. And we’re not even going to know what hit us,” Mr. Martin said. “We need to do something. We need to take action.”

Having traveled the road to recovery as a resident of the Oxford House program in Lewes, Mr. Martin now devotes his energy to helping others who have fallen into that addiction abyss. He has opened 23 three-quarter houses statewide and runs the A.C.E. (Acceptance Change Empowerment) Peer Resource Center and Haven at the Peer Recovery House in Seaford, and is on-site manager of the New Street Recovery House for Men in Georgetown.

Monthly SCAPC meetings are held at Lighted Pathway Family Center operated by the Stein Highway Church of God where Pastor Southern is Senior Pastor.

“We are in the infant stage. Most people want to see a whole lot done right away,” said Pastor Southern. “But it is going to take a while to get a lot of momentum going – the right kind of momentum. We can get momentum going just by announcing, ‘Hey, there is a drug problem; let’s come and talk about it.’ But I don’t want it to be a coalition that is just talking about the problem, I want it to be a coalition that is actually addressing the problem, and by doing that we may have to go in and do some surveys in some of the schools. We may have to get some information gathering from different sectors – society, even business as to the workforce, as in how this is affecting the workforce.”

“In order to conquer addiction in our communities, we need teamwork. We need programs, and we need education,” said Mr. Martin.

SCAPC plans to meet the first Tuesday of every month at the Lighted Pathway Family Center.

Each month, the meeting will spotlight an organization or agency. The June 7 meeting is scheduled to showcase law enforcement. Meetings are open to the public.

“Anyone that has been impacted by drugs – it doesn’t have to be heroin, but that’s our biggest problem – and anyone that is providing services,” said Mr. Martin.

“What we really need is more involvement from the schools and school boards, in my opinion,” Pastor Southern said. “And I think we really need some of the leadership in the community to step to the plate and put a face on some of this stuff, whether it be through legislation or through towns that are willing to step to the plate. Even the County, the County Council could do that.”

One of SPAPC’s initial aims is to fill 12 spokes of the “community wheel” in becoming a Drug-Free Community: youth, parents, business community, media, schools, youth serving organizations, law enforcement agencies, faith-based organizations, civic-volunteer groups, healthcare professionals, state and local governments and other organizations involved in substance abuse.

“The reason for the sectors is so that we can be part of Drug Free Community and they have grant money,” said Pastor Southern. “But we don’t have to wait until those 12 sectors are in place to start doing things. We need to go ahead and start putting together action committees.”

Mr. Martin says the peer centers welcome addicts seeking help with open arms.

“We’re a drop in center, no appointment necessary,” said Mr. Martin. “We’re very hands-on. We have a peer committee and we’re all a bunch of knuckleheads, but we’re not knuckleheads anymore. We used to be knuckleheads, me included.”

There are rules and requirements.
“Two beds to a room. And they have to go work. And a lot of times they go to work at the chicken plants; they give them chances. They have to work. The money comes from the guys,” said Mr. Martin. “That’s why people like us, especially the State of Delaware is because were not on the dole. Once they get that $7.25 an hour job – guess what? Food stamps stop, Medicaid stops, and they are on their own and are paying their way. And they are paying the rent. And I’m going to make sure you get support if you hang in there.”

While the road to recovery from addiction is very difficult and challenging, Mr. Martin says he is living proof it’s not mission impossible.

“I was a child support addict,” Mr. Martin said. “I made my $7.25 an hour, and on top of that $3 an hour was taken out so I could pay my child support. So I, Jim Martin, had to learn to live on $4 an hour. Try that for a couple years. That’s what made me who I am right am right now. If I can do it, you can. I’m double nickels – 55 – and I’ve got back problems, heart problems. I don’t want to hear excuses. If I can do it you can do it.”