An incident involving a high school student swearing at the School Town of Highland’s school resource officer last week has given more urgency to the School Board’s plan for creating a set of guidelines for the officer to follow.

According to a Nov. 16 police report, a male student threw an object to a friend, Highland Police Chief Pete Hojnicki said. The school resource officer, Detective. Sgt. Tim Towasnicki, asked the student what he had thrown, and he denied throwing anything. Towasnicki asked him again what he had thrown, and the student, who is a minor, allegedly swore at him.

Highland High School Principal Jim Conway and Assistant Principal Michael Urban were in other parts of the building at the time.

Towasnicki escorted the student to a room, where he was placed in handcuffs and arrested for disorderly conduct.

Hojnicki said Towasnicki was doing his job as he saw fit. But some school administrators are concerned that the punishment didn’t fit the crime.

“There’s a difference of opinion as to how this should’ve been handled,” said Superintendent Renner Ventling, a former Highland High School principal. “If it were a teacher or principal, we certainly wouldn’t have tolerated the behavior, and the student would’ve received one or two days of out-of-school suspension. But (arresting the student) was not normal.

“If there was some physical attempt at the officer, that’s one thing, but to my knowledge, there wasn’t. My issue is, we need to further clarify what the SRO can and can’t do,” Ventling said.

The job description for the school resource officer says Towasnicki’s primary duties will be “preventative, proactive intervention, but will follow standard lawful procedures when necessary.”

It also requires that the officer “use sound judgment before making an arrest. If arrests are made, information concerning the incident will be shared with the building principal and remain strictly confidential.”

School Town of Highland attorney Joe Curosh declined to comment on the matter, other than to say officials are looking into the incident.

Other area administrators appreciated Ventling’s concerns, although they defended the school resource officer’s position as a law-enforcement officer. Rocky Killion, assistant superintendent for the Lake Central School Corp., said at one point, the Lake Central school had both a retired police officer as its head of security as well as a school resource officer, but cuts in grant money forced them to eliminate the second position.

“I do believe an SRO is a deterrent,” Killion said. “You never know what a student is planning or how someone will react to a situation, and having the SRO is helpful in the right circumstance.”

He admitted there are arguments pro and con for having a school resource officer, but the bottom line is that the schools must remain safe.

Linda Einsele, Griffith High School principal, said its school resource officer, Sgt. Marlene Starcevich, follows police procedures while in school buildings and has the right to implement them in an official capacity.

But when it comes down to administering routine discipline, such as when a student is swearing at a teacher or administrator, the school handles the issue.

“One goal for our resource officer is to also promote and build good relations with the students,” Einsele said. “But as far as discipline, she’s used for more serious offenses.”

His death left grieving friends and colleagues to remember a man with a quick wit and a quick smile, though he seldom displayed both at the same time.

A journalist dedicated to what is just and right.

A solid friend.

A funny, funny guy.

Someone who got the job done, no matter how tough it was.

That’s the man I remember.

We worked together for 21 years, and I find it hard to believe I’ll never hear him call me Gordo again or that he’ll never send me an e-mail pointing out how much the composite drawing of a robbery suspect looks like me.

“He was a deadpan comic,” said longtime radio and television personality Tom Higgins, who was a target of Richard’s humorous harpoons at a roast Tom’s friends threw for him after he and WYIN-TV parted ways.

“He’d make you laugh, wait until you had quieted down and then he’d kick you in the butt again. He had people wiping their eyes.”

Former Post-Tribune reporter Joe Conn knew Richard, who he describes as “a merry prankster” from the time they were seventh-graders together at Gary Edison.

Richard sat in front of Joe in Ms. Perino’s art class. “Rich was always turning around,” Joe said. “Finally, he got on her last nerve, and she took us both out in the hall and swatted us. I never let him forget that he got me into trouble.”

Joe moved to Hobart and played football, as Richard did at Gary West Side, but they never played each other.

Richard started writing for the Post-Tribune as a summer intern while attending Ball State University and became a full-time sportswriter in 1973.

When Joe returned from Africa after a stint in the Peace Corps and took a job at the Post-Tribune, there was Richard, ready and willing to get him into trouble again. “I never let him forget he’d gotten me paddled once,” Joe said.

It was former managing editor Terry O’Rourke who hired Richard, a decision he never regretted, he says. “He was good for the paper,” Terry said. “There was nothing bad you could say about him.”

Richard’s deep attachment to his hometown was the journalistic commitment that Higgins thought extraordinary.

“He knew Gary from way back,” Higgins said. “He knew the old guys, but he also stayed up on the timely stuff.”

Writing a weekly column in addition to his duties as North Lake editor, Richard embodied the age-old mission of a newspaper, to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

But Conn, a former president of The Newspaper Guild, also recalled a man who was, in earlier times, a rock-solid member of his union and a tireless worker on behalf of the Christmas Neediest Fund, the holiday charity the union sponsored.

“He was the heart and soul of that enterprise,” Conn said. “He would marshal the troops, wrap the presents, do whatever it took to get the job done.”

He and Richard used to drive to a toy warehouse in Schaumburg and fill a delivery truck with gifts. They were road trips filled with laughter.

When I saw Rich in the hospital a week or so ago, he seemed to be on the mend. We talked about old times and about what’s going on at and around the newspaper now. We had a few laughs, but he was itching to get out of the hospital, not a man to willingly take things lying down.

Now he’s gone.

He was feeling the way many of us are feeling now when he wrote a column in March about a woman who tirelessly gave of herself to others.

The column, which touched many people, ended with these words.

After losing her ability to give, she lost her will to live.

When her suffering ended, it hurt me, but I was glad.

At her funeral this week, it’ll hurt more because I fear I’ll see her for the last time.

I know she’s earned a spot in heaven. I’m not sure about her youngest son.

You may not have been sure, Rich, but we are.

We know wherever that good woman who bore you is, there you are, too.

And we know you’re smiling.

I ask for your indulgence as this subject I explore and beg your forgiveness if you think I am a bore

But someone had to act on a tragic situation So I put my rear in gear but it gives me no elation

To be the one to explain to you how our newsroom refrigerator appear and smelled like a stockyard elevator

There were vegetables with roots which had re-sprouted And things a rat might eat although I'd seriously doubt it

I found milk cartons dated April January and October, too I even found K-rations from the big war, WWII

There were salads long since wilted salad dressings much too old and many covered dishes which were long ago lost to mold

And up in that freezer those pitiful ice trays amidst what looked like road kill that been sitting there for days

I guess what I'm getting at now that I have your attention is help from you to get me through this not-so-secret mission

So if you aren't a culprit this message isn't for you you can disregard it and find something else to do

But I spent considerable time cleaning out all the crap washing doors, inside walls the metal and plastic racks

I used industrial cleaner and scrubbed with a heavy lean and after nearly an hour I almost got it clean

So in the future you and I could be much more respectful if we removed our aging items and not be so forgetful

From now on, at least for a while you needn't be afraid to use it But I shouldn't have to tell you That you shouldn't abuse it

And by the way, for those of you who had the Tupperware, look for it on top of the fridge and get it out of here

All of this I beg of you this time, but keep in mind that if I go through this again I will not be so kind

-- a reluctant custodian