Fentanyl & Illicit Drug Awareness Events

By Kim Bekkedahl, Assistant Superintendent, Kuna School District

Over two days, our secondary students, our community and a large group of treasure valley athletes heard a powerful message from former Drug Enforcement Agency officer Rocky Herron about helping our students choose their future. Rocky is a retired DEA agent with 31 years of experience and now takes that experience literally around the world as a drug prevention advocate and speaker. As a law enforcement officer, he has watched this crisis spiral to dangerous levels for a period of time now.

Rocky shared information about the challenges — social media pressure, high potency drugs, and easy access to drugs, that our youth face that are impacting their mental health and well-being.  Rocky had an emphasis on the Fentanyl Crisis because it is the biggest challenge facing the treasure valley right now, and unfortunately our kids will encounter this drug in several forms as they navigate through life.

Rocky was able to present at 4 all school assemblies to 7th – 12th in the Kuna Schools, and to our second (Connecting Together) parent and community event. Rocky and his daughter Roxie, A Nampa Police Officer presented to a full auditorium of treasure valley athletes at the NNU Brandt Center. This was a powerful event also as we know that our athletes face a unique challenge at times with pressure put on them from numerous sources and can be at risk for substance abuse just the same as everyone else.

With the support of our Superintendent’s Advisory Council and our amazing community partners, who understand the urgency, Sgt. Brian Keen and I were able get resources and a venue to help bring Rocky and his message to our kids and community (We were able to use statistics shared by Gov. Brad Little in his January 2023 State of the State speech helped us get a grant to cover some of the costs.)

What is next?

Our work has just begun. The council and subcommittee will continue to keep working on ways to get a prevention message out to our kids and community.

Thank you to the Idaho Office of Drug Policy for your commitment to the work we are doing.