A man photographed in front of a Texas school is getting the best sort of news coverage: He’s standing guard to give parents and kids comfort and peace of mind.
Last week, Samantha Longfeather-Locke took the now-viral photo of fellow parent Ed Chelby in front of Saegert Elementary in Killeen, Texas. “The world needed to know what he was doing because I feel that, that’s sparking some sort of change to start,” she says.
Chelby’s actions come as parents everywhere continue to process last week’s Uvalde school shooting. The dad and husband decided to put his 11 years of Army experience and background in security to good use, so he emailed the school’s superintendent to ask permission to stand guard.
“I said I would just be out there unarmed to let people know that I’m watching. Let the parents have a little bit of relief,” Chelby tells KWTX. Like most parents since last week, Chelby was having issues sleeping so he decided to do something about it.
The father says he was already in the process of applying to volunteer at the school and was just waiting on his background check to be finalized. He’s gotten nothing but positive feedback since he took his post outside the school. “I’ve had a lot of emotional people come up to me. They didn’t want to send their kids to school. They struggled with sending their kids to school. And I told them, I was like, ‘I got them.’”
The last day of school was May 26 so, for now, Chelby is off-duty for the summer. Hopefully, over the next few months, his volunteer application gets approved so he can get back to giving everyone the reassurance they need to start the year off right.
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