Sheriff's Department Volunteers of Year Named

SAN DIEGO, CA: With April being "Volunteer Month," the county of San Diego this week saluted three extremely dedicated people from the Sheriff's Department by naming them volunteers of the year, it was announced.

From among more than 900 volunteers, the trio honored during a ceremony held Tuesday included: Santee senior volunteer patrol William Denton; crime lab volunteer Bill Graul; and search-and-rescue team leader Pam Medhurst.

Denton has been working as a senior volunteer at the Santee Sheriff's Station for nearly 18 years. He conducts free vacation checks, helps at the station, does traffic or crowd controls, and checks on the welfare of elderly or disabled adults.

Graul has been volunteering for the Sheriff's Crime Lab for 29 years. He developed a system for cataloguing guns and created numerous computerized databases to keep track of evidence.

Medhurst has been volunteering for Sheriff's Search and Rescue for 18 years as a K‐9 unit team leader. As a SAR volunteer, she responds to missing person and rescue calls 24 hours per day. In her spare time, Medhurst and her "Simon the Safety Bloodhound" puppet read to children at libraries and schools to teach them how they can stay safe.

Denton, Graul, Medhurst and the department's 900-plus other volunteers, along with thousands of others, "helped save the county more than $44 million during the 2014‐2015 fiscal year," said Melissa Aquino, spokeswoman for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

For more information about volunteering, visit Sdsheriff.net/volunteers.

Photo: San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore (far right) is pictured with the department's volunteers of the year (left to right): William Denton, Pam Medhurst and Bill Graul. (Courtesy photo)