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Officer’s heroism lauded
Setting aside his own safety, he pulls driver from burning car
By Jim Getz
The Dallas Morning News

Clay Lacey was a student at A&M-Commerce from 1994 to ‘98. He recently was featured in a Dallas newspaper story, reprinted here.

As flames rose in the overturned car, so did Clay Lacey’s fear.

The Garland police office had used his utility knife to saw through bundles of wires. He had sapped his strength trying to bend twisted metal.

Still, he could not free the man trapped in the burning Chevrolet. It had careened off Interstate 635 just minutes before and flown into a line of five pickups parked at a car dealership.

Alone early Tuesday, seeing the flames spread toward the dashboard, thoughts of his 4-year-old son flashing through his mind, Officer Lacey instinctively evaluated how to free the man’s legs from between the steering wheel and windshield. He climbed in the car.

“It was as scared as I’ve ever been in this occupation,” Officer Lacey, 27, said Tuesday night. “Not necessarily for myself. I didn’t want to see him burned up. I wasn’t mentally prepared for that. So until I couldn’t stand it anymore, I was going to try to get him out.”

Once inside the car, Officer Lacey was able to pry loose the man’s legs and feet. He squeezed both of them out just as the interior burst into flames.

Officer Lacey dragged the man a few feet and collapsed just as his backup, Officer Junior Moreno, arrived and pulled the driver to a safer distance.

When Officers Lacey and Moreno turned to see whether anyone else was in the car, they saw only an inferno.

The Garland Fire Department arrived, and paramedics sped the driver, 34-year-old Scott Marestein of Richardson, to Parkland Memorial Hospital. He spent the night there in stable condition before being released.

Ken Dillon, general manager of Jupiter Chevrolet, said Mr. Marestein was lucky to survive. The turf next to the curb off 635’s Jupiter Road exit was barely disturbed, evidence that the 1999 Malibu had flown into a pipe-metal fence and lamppost before totaling two pickups and damaging three others.

Mr. Dillon estimated the damage at his dealership at $40,000. “It’s a miracle this guy’s alive. It’s a miracle he’s still on the planet.” Mr. Dillon said of the driver. “You just don’t do that much damage and live. God must’ve been looking out for him.” Mr. Dillon said Officer Lacey, whom he met for the first time amid the wreckage, acted as if it all was just part of a typical night’s work.

“The officer who got him out was very nice—calm, cool and collected,” Mr. Dillon said. “He said, ‘I just had to get him out of there.’ I thought that was pretty humble.”

Garland police Capt. Jody Lay, who as a lieutenant was Officer Lacey’s immediate supervisor during the younger officer’s rookie year, said that’s a good description.

Officer Lacey, he said, has a knack for being in the right place at the right time, but he also works hard.

“He was telling me on the phone that he didn’t do anything we wouldn’t have done in similar circumstances. He couldn’t understand what all the hoopla was about, that it’s things we do every day,” Capt. Lay said. “But the thing is, he was in that position and he did the right thing and saved a life.”

Officer Lacey has always wanted to patrol the streets of Garland where he grew up, always believed that policing “was a good way to help folks out.”

He started out as a dispatcher, studied criminal justice at Texas A&MCommerce and went to the police academy. In his five years on the street, he has received 30 compliment letters from residents.

The department has awarded him numerous certificates of merit, including one for chasing down a couple of car burglars after taking the initiative to more intensely patrol the area where burglaries had occurred.

In a way, he said, that’s why the fear set in for the first time early Tuesday. Generally, when you’re chasing crooks or going after bad guys, you’re taking positive steps,” he said. “In this accident, felt like nothing I was doing was working. It was getting frustrating.”

But in the end, things did work. There was only one casualty besides the vehicles.

“Here he was, at 3:30 in the morning, joking that he tore his new uniform pants,” Mr. Dillon recalled at a news conference Tuesday evening at Garland police headquarters.

“We got backups for that reason,” Officer Lacey said.

Reprinted with permission of The Dallas Morning News

Social Studies Teacher of Year is Alumna Linda Krause

Which U.S. president spoke of the government of the people, by the people and for the people?”

That’s the kind of question each fifth-grade student in Linda Jones Krause’s (BS ’76) social studies class has to answer before he or she can leave class for the day. Needless to say, they’re eager to be called on.

But earning an exit isn’t the only way Linda gets the learning going, say her former students and current principal.

For instance, she recently spread out a collection of mock journal entries from visitors to certain eastern states. After students read the entries, their job was to match each state with the correct item on a 15-item list of souvenirs.

“Her students not only learn history, social studies and geography, they also are inspired to be better people and understand what it is to be part of a democratic society,” Linda’s principal recently told a local reporter.

So, Pride readers, now here’s your question for the day: “Who did the Texas Council for the Social Studies recently name as its Teacher of the Year?”

If you answered “Linda Jones Krause!” then you have The Pride’s permission to leave work for the day.

Theatre student Garrison Ausburn did a live interview from Dallas for a Houston TV station about the play he wrote based on the Andrea Yates case in Houston. Garrison’s play, "Their Mother's Hand," was performed on campus as well as at Collin County Community College, where it was the University’s entry into the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival competition. Garrison said ideas for the play began forming after seeing Rusty Yates, Andrea's husband, on "Oprah." "I was really taken aback by how cold and emotionless Rusty Yates was after his babies had just been drowned," he said. "I wondered how he could seem to not be affected by this."

Alpha Delta Pi reunion on tap for sisters of the ‘70s

A reunion for the Alpha Delta Pi Sorority Sisters of Delta Tau Chapter—classes 1970-1976— will be Saturday, April 24.

The reunion will be held at the Hilton Dallas Lincoln Center (formerly the DoubleTree Hotel) at Dallas North Tollway and LBJ / Interstate 635.

The event, which will include a hot & cold hors d’oeuvres buffet, pasta bar, desserts and a cash bar, will be from 7 p.m. to 1 a.m.

If you were an ADPi during these years and would like to attend, please send an e-mail to: deltatausisters@hotmail.com. You can also access more information at www.deltatausisters.org.

Sporting collegiate plate helps A&M-Commerce students

A&M-Commerce is one of approximately 50 Texas colleges and universities participating in the collegiate license plate program. Collegiate specialty plates are $30 annually in addition to the regular
vehicle registration fee. Of that amount, $25 goes to the universities for students in need of scholarships.

“It’s a great way to promote and advertise the University and help students,” says Dr. Kayla Price, director of Alumni Relations and Services.

Alumni and students using Texas plates can get an application for collegiate license plates at their county tax office.

More information also is available at www.dot.state.tx.us/vtr/spplates/ allplates.htm or by by calling the Texas Department of Transportation’s help desk at 512-465-7611.