Photo Courtesy of Helene Dodge : Brooke Welborn and husband Ryan Welborn (on far right) in a 2009 vacation photo when they were in VA away from Egypt visiting Helene Dodge ( Brooke's mom 2nd from right) and Helen's husband John Dodge on far left.

Cairo, Egypt &
Nelson County, Virginia
As shown in the comments’ section of this post, Helene told us Tuesday of some good news:

“They are now safely at the resort area of sharm el-sheikh on the Red Sea. They will stay there for a week or so in order to make a smart decision on where to go from there. Many thanks for the article, Tommy, and all the well wishes and prayers, Helene”

Great news and we are glad they are safe and doing well!

Original post from 1.30.11
By now most of us have heard about the uprising of citizens in Cairo, Egypt against their government. But for one mom right here in Nelson, word of the uprising hits very close to home. “I think on Thursday there was no contact and Friday I didn’t see her online at all and I was starting to read the headlines on the internet and I went, hmmmmm. This doesn’t sound like it’s going very good. This is definitely going downhill, let me try to contact her by phone. I tried calling her and I could not get through. That was Friday,” Helene Dodge of Nelson County (featured in this 2010 NCL story) told us Sunday afternoon about her daughter Brook Welborn and her husband Ryan who have lived near Cairo, Egypt the past three years.

“Her husband who was a high school teacher down in the Tidewater area always wanted to teach internationally. So about three years ago they made the decision. They picked Egypt. He is teaching in Cairo as a history teacher in sort of a college prep setting. Brooke was working in Colonial Williamsburg. She’s been subbing in Cairo for the past two years and this year she became an administrative assistant so they are both employed at the school,” Helene continued.

Brooke and her husband are ironically enjoying a visit from her father who lives in Charles City County, VA. So the three are now near the unrest taking place in Cairo about 45 minutes from where they live. “She said the neighborhood they live in, Heliopolis, some of the locals set up barricades to protect everybody in that neighborhood. They had barricades last night.They’re going to finish up tonight and then head out first thing in the morning.”

A decision was being made over the past 24 hours as to whether or not the trio would stay in Cairo or head elsewhere. “Yesterday morning at 5AM our time she called me. The phones had come back up. She said I’m fine, we’re okay. We can’t feel any effects of this. But, we’re going to go into school today. Sunday. That’s their first day of school through Thursday since it’s a Muslim country. They were going into school to see what the principal was going to say. That’s when the school decided they were going to bus everybody out of town over to the Red Sea indefinitely until they make a decision what people are going to do. Whether they fly out to Cypress or they come back into Cairo depending on what transpires,” Helene tells NCL.

As you can imagine staying in touch with her daughter has been tough. The government in Egypt cut off all phone service and internet last week and only sporadic messages have been able to get through. “I’m just very happy they are getting out of town. Obviously, we’d rather them be close to home and have babies, but that’s their choice. This is very scary this is happening and who knows, this may be time for them to move on or come home. But as long as they’re safe,” Helene says.

So Brooke and Ryan’s friends know what’s happening, Helene has been posting information to their respective Facebook pages to update everyone since there was no internet available in Egypt as of Sunday evening here in the US. But for Helene right now it’s about focusing on the upside. ” I’ve got a real strong Christian family and church here. They’ve been really supportive with a lot of good friends. That’s been really helpful to keep this positive. Cause if I don’t stay positive you can get kind of wigged out thinking about the ramification to you family.”

All Photos By Tommy Stafford : ©2010 www.nelsoncountylife.com : Nelson County Deputy Bill McDonald prepares to train with his dog Nicodemus at the old American Yarn Plant in Afton. Virginia. Click any photo to enlarge.

Afton
Nelson County, Virginia

By Jennie Tal

Bill McDonald, the Nelson County School Resource Officer, spent one recent Wednesday in an empty building looking for narcotics with his K-9, Nicodemus. And, although it wasn’t a real drug bust, Nicodemus was successful. We first told you about the team in the March 2010 printed issue of Nelson County Life magazine on page 20.

Officer McDonald and Nicodemus were just practicing that day. They’re both members of the Blue Ridge Police K-9 Association, a group of police officers and their K-9 partners who train all day every other Wednesday. The association was formed about five years ago to help train the dogs and their handlers.

“It just sort of formed out of a necessity for area K-9 handlers to train together,” said City of Charlottesville K-9 Officer and Handler Lynn Childers. “Most departments have only one or maybe two dogs and the training you need to do, you need other people to help you.”

Photo Courtesy of Lynn Childers : Charlottesville K-9 Office Lynn Childers and her dog Brett.

Officer Childers said that the 16 hours a month the association trains is really only the minimum that police dogs should be training and that most of the dogs, including her K-9 Brett, get training at home daily.

“A dog needs constant repetition and constant reminders to stay good at what he does,” she said. “There’s a lot of things you can do by yourself, but the group really fills the gap with doing more advanced skills.”

Brett, an 8-year-old German Shepherd, is considered a cross-trained K-9 who does both full police work of tracking and apprehending people and searching for drugs. Nicodemus and Officer McDonald, on the other hand, focus mainly on narcotics, something Officer McDonald says has been extremely helpful to him as a school resource officer.

Deputy McDonald does a room to room search with Nicodemus inside the former American Yarn Plant.

“I think the school credits [Nicodemus] with keeping drugs out of the school by a large margin,” he said.

Just by having Nicodemus, a 5-year-old Belgian Malinois, around the school, it prevents some students from bring narcotics to class. Likewise, Officer Childers says that by having Brett at her side, suspects are quite often more likely to cooperate.

“Just showing up on a chaotic scene… with a dog really makes a difference in the outcome,” she said. “[Suspects] don’t seem to be as concerned with officers pointing rifles at them as they do with dogs.”

For years, the group has been open to any local police departments with K-9 components, but recently it has attracted some new members. Helene Dodge and her yellow Labrador retriever, Orso, were invited to be part of the association. Orso, a search and rescue dog, specializes in live wilderness searches and human remains detection.

Helene Dodge (left) with her dog Orso along with professional trainer Armin Winkler debrief after a practice search in the old yarn factory.

“This is kind of a different end of the spectrum,” said Dodge. “But they have a really great trainer and he will help me kind of move my dog along and help with some of the weak spots he has in his searching.”

While the officers really do learn from each other, they have some professional help, too. That trainer Dodge mentioned is Armin Winkler who has been training dogs since he was a kid and is now a professional trainer who lives here in Central Virginia. After meeting with the Blue Ridge Police K-9 Association to help with a dog having training trouble and then teaching an annual in-service course for K-9 Handlers, Winkler has become a mainstay in the training program.

Helene and Orso preparing to enter the building on a search.

“All dog training, especially in law enforcement, is what a dog naturally likes to do,” he said. “Like he’s hunting a rabbit.”

The trick is just getting them to do it on command.

“What we do in training is we manipulate the dog to believe that a make-believe rabbit smells like narcotics,” said Winkler. “We give him replacement prey.”

Deputy McDonald and Nicodemus right after a successful search at the training day.

Be sure to check out the print story in the March 2010 issue of NCL, ONLINE, by clicking here!

©2009 NCL Magazine : Photo By Tommy Stafford : Nelson County Sheriff David Brooks (left) and Helene Dodge, a Special K-9 Deputy, along with Orso at RRES.

Afton
Nelson County, Virginia
As the school year winds down and summer vacation begins, young minds are on being outside. To help keep children safe while being outdoors, Helene Dodge, a special K-9 deputy with NCSD along with her search dog, Orso, talked to students at Rockfish River Elementary School about safety tips if they should become lost in the wilderness.

Sheriff Brooks demonstrates how a bright orange garbage bag can be used to stay dry and help search teams locate a missing child in the woods.

The program is a cooperative effort between the Nelson County Sheriff’s Department and Saunder’s Brothers, Inc in Piney River to teach children what to do if they ever become lost.

Sheriff Brooks tells one of the students at RRES to have a safe and fun summer!

Students say so long to Deputy MacDonald and his dog.

A similar program will be held on the 1st of June at Tye River Elementary School.

Have a safe summer!