MHS student prepares for future with an internship at Weber County Sheriffs' office

Senior year of high school can bring opportunities to prepare students for their future careers. This was the case for recent Morgan High School Graduate, Harrison Farmer. 

For the first time at MHS a criminal justice class was offered during the second trimester of the 2022/2023 school year. Taught by social studies teacher, Kari Raeburn, Harrison was excited to take the class since that was the field he planned to go into.

After talking to Raeburn about an opportunity at the Salt Lake State prison as an intern, Harrison decided the commute didn’t financially make sense. The two then discussed some connections that Raeburn had with the Weber County Sheriff's Office. 

After touring the prison and learning about the different areas in the sheriffs' office, Harrison started an internship during the third trimester of school, with the Weber County Sheriff's office. 

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays his fifth and sixth-hour classes became a time for him to leave campus and work as an intern with the sheriff's office. He worked in every possible area that he could, starting in the corrections area. While working in booking, he interacted with people who had just been arrested. He said he was impressed with the level of respect suspects were shown as they went through the booking process. 

Harrison was able to go with school resource officers to one of the high schools in the county. While there, he learned how officers need to look at the whole situation they are involved in.

He commented that some of his favorite days were when he was able to go out on patrol; from anything to medical emergencies to fires.

“If you ever want a job that you wake up and you never know what’s going to happen, being a patrol officer is the right job for you,” commented Harrison. 

When Governor Cox visited MHS in April, Harrison had the opportunity to talk with the governor about his future plans in law enforcement. Governor Cox responded with, “Man, we really need good officers today. That’s awesome!”

Now that he has graduated from high school, Harrison plans to attend Weber State University to study Criminal Justice and Political Science with plans to go into the career field of Law Enforcement focusing on Patrol, Traffic, and Narcotics. To help with the cost of higher education, Harrison received a Scholarship from the Utah Sheriff’s Association. “I had to be going into a field similar to law enforcement and I had to write a couple of different pages on why I would want it and the way I would change Law Enforcement today,” he stated. λ