By Mike Greife,
October 14, 2016
WARRENSBURG, MO – The University of Central Missouri’s Gamma Epsilon Delta chapter
of the American Criminal Justice Association-Lambda Alpha Epsilon claimed the sweepstakes
trophy at organization’s the regional conference in Lincoln, Neb.
UCM was one of eight schools competing in the event. LAE-GED won 57 of 90 individual
and team trophies and medals awarded, including the prestigious Top Academic trophy
awarded to graduate student Mackenzie Carreon and theTop Gun Trophy presented to Maj.
Richard Gillespie, LAE-GED advisor.
Others partcipating in the Nebraska Regional Competition were advisors Gregg W. Etter,
Sr., Roger Pennel and Sherri DioGuardi, with each receiving trophies in the professional
competition categories.
Fifty-one LAE-GED student members and one additional professional member participated
in six separate areas of competition, including academic testing, comprised of exams
in Corrections, Criminal Law, Juvenile Justice, LAE Knowledge and Policing Management;
Academic Poster Presentations; Crime Scene Investigations; Physical Agility; and Firearms.
LAE-GED student members won first place in every single category of competition. In
these events, upper division includes junior or senior students, and lower division
includes freshmen and sophomores.
For Corrections, Harrison Davis, lower division, and Kyle Fiest, upper division, received
first place trophies.
In Criminal Law, Sabrina Morgan won the lower division firstplace, and Stacia Pottorf
won for upper division.
First Place in Police Management went to Christian Hilmer, lower, and Mackenzie Carreon,
upper.Carreon also placed first for Juvenile Justice and for her Academic Poster Presentation.
For LAE Knowledge, first place trophies went to Mary King, lower, and Mojdeh Khoshnavaz,
upper, and King also won the top prize for her Poster Presentation in the lower division.
Students worked in teams to conduct crime scene investigations, and two of UCM’s teams
won first place. Lower division first place went to Roberta Essman, Bryce Karigan,
and Nolan Johnson. Professional division first place went to Jonathon Glueckert, Mojdeh
Khoshnavaz, and Lynsey Sciolaro.
In the Physical Agility competition, first place trophies went to Jonathan Glueckert.
male 26-35, Julie Harris, female 25 and under, and Derek Schwartz, male 25 and under.
In the Firearms competition, LAE-GED won first place in both the individual and team
shooting categories. The firstplace individual trophies went to Schwartz, lower division,
Kyle Fiest, upper division, and Gillespie, professional division. The shooting teams
winning firstplace trophies were Brant Giudici, Hilmer and Schwartz, lower division;
Marissa Blanton, Ryan Clancy, and Fiest, upper division; and Gillespie, Glueckert,
and Sciolaro, professional division.
The UCM GED-LAE chapter will travel to the ACJA-LAE national conference in Austin,
Texas in March 2017.