15 cadets join AGFC’s game warden roster

CONWAY — Fifteen cadets endured 18 grueling weeks of training and completed all the necessary tests to be accepted as new game wardens for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission during a ceremony Sept. 19 at Antioch Baptist Church.

An 83 percent graduation rate for the class from where it began, with 18 prospective game wardens, was excellent news to Lt. Tracey Blake, the AGFC’s assistant training administrator, who led Friday’s ceremony.

“It is a pretty good return, considering especially last year when we started with 16 and only graduated seven. But I told them this week, ‘You’re a committed group.’ That’s why there’s 15 graduating, and that’s going to take them a long ways in their career, being committed to the agency and the job,” Blake said.

Cadets, families, AGFC commissioners and others heard from AGFC Director Doug Schoenrock, while Benecia B. Moore, a magistrate judge from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, swore in the cadets. Lt. Col. Joe Williams, interim chief of the AGFC Enforcement Division, presented cadets with their diplomas and also addressed the new class, urging them to “be fair, be consistent,” as he had learned from his first partner in AGFC enforcement, the late Pat Fitts, who eventually rose to director of the agency. Fitts, who retired in 2021, died earlier this year.

“He had an expectation that you’re going to show up early, show up prepared, and most importantly, he had the gift of talking to people and could build those relationships,” Williams said of his message to the cadets. “It’s about networking with your community, getting to know where you’re at. Even though you may not know these people, you’ve never been in this community in your life, get out here and introduce yourself and say hello.”

Cadet Phillip Gage Gustavus, a resident of Shell Knob, Missouri, before joining the cadet school, was elected during the fourth week of training to be the cadets’ spokesman, and he described their time at the H.C. “Red” Morris Enforcement Training Center east of Mayflower and just off Lake Conway.

“You’ve seen us grow quite a bit,” he said to the audience. “We’re a true family as well. We can call everyone in this class a brother and sister. We were not going to let anyone stand in our way. We had our good days and our bad days.”

Schoenrock told the “thin green line” of cadets, “You were tested to the extreme. You’ve done things you didn’t dream you’d do and, most of all, you succeeded. You have been called. You’re ready to use that training to face all the elements of your job.” He assured them that hundreds of AGFC staff and the AGFC’s dispatch office, with which they’ll most interact, “care about you.”

The class, waiting to enter the church sanctuary and take their seats on the stage, was urged by Blake to yell their class motto: “A game warden is at his best when situations are at their worst.”

New game wardens and their county assignments are: Bennett Austin, Clay; Cody Carter, Crittenden; John Frantom, Desha; Phillip Gustavus, Arkansas; Clayton Guy, Lee; Joshua Leech, Prairie; Richie Oliver, Woodruff; Haley Reed, Jackson; TraeMichael Samuel, Howard; Henry Sanders, Randolph; Steven Sheeley, Nevada; Carlton Talley, Drew; Dylan Watkins, Ashley; Triston Webster, Phillips; and Simon Whisenhunt, Ouachita.

Thirteen of the cadets were Arkansas residents when they entered training. Along with Gustavus working in Missouri, Oliver resided in Cypress, Illinois, when he was accepted into cadet school.

Five cadets stood out during the training and received special awards.

Richie Oliver, who studied wildlife management at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, aced such activities as the mile-and-a-half fun, the 300-meter run, situps, bench press and pushups to win the cadets’ physical fitness award.

Steven Sheeley, who had grown up and attended high school in Midlothian, Texas, before joining the U.S. Air Force and working as a C-130 crew chief, achieved the highest grade point average for all courses, a 92.9 average. He was presented with the Edward Hayes Armstrong Award.

Top Gun among the cadets for his precision with pistol and rifle, scoring 99.5 percent accuracy, was Gustavus, who grew up in Conway and graduated from Berryville High School. He was most recently working as a pipefitter in Missouri before choosing the enforcement route.

John Frantom, a criminal justice major at Ole Miss with a minor in history, won the water survival award.

Triston Terrell Webster, who resides in Marvell and was most recently with the Helena-West Helena police department, was voted by his fellow cadets as the winner of the Joel Campora Memorial Outstanding Achievement Award, which honors the cadet who most displays the characteristics that marked the late AGFC game warden. Campora and an Arkansas sheriff lost their lives in 2013 in an attempted water rescue operation during a flash flood near Y City.

The new game wardens bring the total number of AGFC game wardens to 158.

Blake, who was with the cadets the whole way, said, “(The training) is pretty tough. I think the toughest part for them is being away from their families for that duration … yeah, they get to go home for the weekends, but that’s a day just to catch up, maybe do laundry and get their headspace right just to come back. That’s probably the hardest part.

“Now, it’s no different than any other military basic training or law enforcement training. There is the physical aspect of it, the mental aspect of it, they’re going to study, they’re going to take tests, they’re going to do reports, presentations. And all that, along with just learning how to do the job, the protocols involved, the processes that we look for as they get ready to go out in the field. So, it’s grueling. It can be grueling and tough, and it’s supposed to be that way.”

CUTLINES:

A COMMITTED GROUP
AGFC Director Doug Schoenrock assured the new class of Game Wardens that hundreds of agency staffers “care about you” during their graduation from cadet to warden following 18 weeks of training.

LEADER OF THE PACK
Phillip Gage Gustavus, a native of Conway, was chosen by his fellow cadets as their spokesman for the class, and received his diploma from Lt. Col. Joe Williams (left), interim chief of the AGFC’s Enforcement Division. Gustavus also was honored for his marksmanship with the Top Gun Award.

THE CADETS’ CHOICE
Marvell’s Triston Terrell Webster was chosen by his fellow cadets as the winner of the Joel Camora Memorial Outstanding Achievement Award for the Class of 2025. Capt. Sydney Carman (right), the AGFC’s training administrator, presented the award.

ADDRESSING THE TROOPS
AGFC Cadets hear from Lt. Col. Joe Williams, interim chief of the Enforcement Division, during their recent graduation ceremony.

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