Adapted from an email sent by Marshal Peter J. Elliott, U.S. Marshal’s Service - Northern District of Ohio

I want to take a second to let you know why G.R.E.A.T. “kids” do GREAT things.

Six years ago, I introduced the G.R.E.A.T. program to the Marshals Service against the wishes of many in the law enforcement community. The purpose of G.R.E.A.T. is to give children a positive image of law enforcement and to steer them in the right direction, instead of allowing them to wander down the wrong path. Many in my organization told me this is not the way we have done business in the past and questioned whether it was the role of the Marshal’s Service to become involved with a youth prevention program.

Despite the misgivings of some of my colleagues, I tasked one of the Deputies in my office to become certified to teach G.R.E.A.T. and go into the schools to implement the G.R.E.A.T. program, on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service. That Deputy, Miranda Holloway far exceeded my original expectations. Miranda has had tremendous success in her efforts, as the first Deputy U.S. Marshal in the nation to instruct G.R.E.A.T.  She has truly been a positive role model from the first student she taught, through the 6,000 students in Northern Ohio who have graduated from her G.R.E.A.T. classes.  I have attended many of Miranda’s graduations and have personally witnessed the miracles she brought about in the students she instructed. In my heart I know that many children in the Cleveland area have been pointed in the right direction because of the G.R.E.A.T. lessons and Miranda’s influence and leadership.  Miranda’s last day in the Northern District Marshal’s Office was May 21st; she moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to be closer to her family.  I intend to continue our Northern Ohio G.R.E.A.T. program, but I realize it will never be the same.  Fortunately, her influence will forever stay with many children in the Greater Cleveland area.

I offer the following as an example of just one of the lives that was touched by Deputy Holloway.  In May 2009, Reginald Ward, a 6th grader at Miles Park School in Cleveland and a G.R.E.A.T. program graduate, found a wallet that contained $110.00. Reginald and his family face fiscal challenges, but despite his peers’ attempts to persuade him to keep the money, Reginald Ward did what he had learned in Deputy Holloway’s G.R.E.A.T. class.  He did not give into the pressure of his peers, urging him to keep the money; rather, he did the right and honorable thing: he turned the wallet and money over to his teacher, so it could be returned to its rightful owner.

G.R.E.A.T. “kids” make the right choices and do GREAT things because of GREAT role models like Deputy Miranda Holloway.  I personally want to congratulate Miranda on not just her success with Reginald Ward, but also for the work she has done with all of the students whose lives she touched during her time as a G.R.E.A.T. officer in the Northern Ohio District.