Corporal Kenny Lowe had never been a school resource officer before, spending the past several years as a patrol officer for Elizabethton, but when the call came out for SROs to enter city elementary schools for the first time, he said he knew exactly where he wanted to go.

“I requested to come here,” Lowe said. “I thought this was a good school.”

Before coming on to the city police department in 2013, he said he spent five years at the Carter County Rescue Squad, so he has spent the past decade serving his community.

“It was time for change,” he said. “I fully believe in the SRO program.”

The transfer comes after a grant awarded to the city police department allowed SROs to enter city elementary schools for the first time, a move West Side principal John Wright said was an excellent help.

“He started about a week before school started,” Wright said. “It is the West Side way to be safe.”

The school, he said, contains roughly 352 students in a relatively small campus nestled in the middle of a neighborhood. Wright said Lowe would go out of his way to help get traffic flowing smoothly each day of this new school year.

“I have heard nothing but positive things,” Wright said about the announcement. “It is not just about intruders.”

Directing traffic and patrolling the school are not the only activities Lowe performs, however. When he is not at home with his two-year-old child or his expectant wife, he said he has been golfing for the past four years.

“People do not realize the challenge,” he said. “I try to do the best I can.”

Lowe said he golfs all across the state, and even tries to go to Myrtle Beach to golf every now and then.

As for West Side, Wright said both the school and city police are learning how to work with each other, but already he has been a tremendous improvement to school safety.

“As we learn more and more about him, we will depend on him more and more,” Wright said.