Peoria Standard

The Peoria school board recently recognized two staff members for their heroic actions at a high school basketball game earlier this month.

As mentioned at the Dec. 12 board meeting, Sgt. Patrick Meachem and Officer Mathew Shirley administered CPR and revived a referee who passed out during a game Dec. 5. Other officers helped ensure the ambulance had easy access to get through the doors while another quickly went to get the AED.

“This type of incident is the tip of the iceberg for this department,” Peoria School District Security Director Demario Boone said at the meeting. “Many of the officers are here today. A lot of them couldn't be here because they're working other events. But I'm overly proud to work alongside these guys and girls, and they do a lot of hard work every day, not only in physically saving lives, but being there emotionally for the families, the children and the city. So with that, I would like to recognize Sgt. Meachem and Officer Shirley for the Remarkable Hero Award.”

The school board also celebrated the high school football team’s second place state finish. Coach Tim Thornton said that he was super proud of his team, who came in as a bit of an underdog and “out-toughed” a lot of teams that were ranked top ten in the state. Some players, coaches and family members were in attendance to commemorate the accomplishment.

“We've got a really close group of kids that do the right thing consistently,” Thornton said at the meeting. “We've got two all staters we had on our team this year. We've got two academical staters on top of that. And we also we just found out today that we won the sportsmanship award for the entire state of Illinois for our class as well.”