WAGONER — In an ongoing effort to promote community involvement, the Wagoner Police Department is hosting a self-defense and drug awareness class.

The class is at 7 p.m. today at the Wagoner Public School Performing Arts Center.

The idea for the class originated, Police Chief Bob Haley said, when a cleaning crew began work at an abandoned house in Wagoner.

“They found some remnants of a shake-and-bake meth lab there,” Haley said. “They were going to just throw it away, but Deputy Chief (Tony) Ponds said, ‘No, wait, you could reactivate it.’

“We kind of thought then that it might be a good idea to provide some awareness and knowledge to the community.”

Haley said it’s important to promote knowledge within the community to ensure citizens have all the knowledge they need to keep themselves “from becoming victims.”

“We just want to put some thoughts in people’s minds to be thinking about,” Haley said. “There’s only so much we can do in one night in terms of knowledge, but it might be a situation where people take what we give them and look into it further.”

Haley said Wagoner held a community meeting last summer that was well received.

“We had some incidents last summer with the rapes,” Haley said. “So we had a meeting about it, and it went pretty well.”

The classes aren’t just about drug awareness. Stan Mitchell, who lives in Wagoner County and is a self-defense expert, will give training to those 18 years old and older during the meeting.

“Stan’s got a lot of experience and a lot of good things to teach,” Haley said. “Again, there’s only so much people can learn from him in a night. But it might be where they take what they learn and decide they want to learn more. It’s all about providing ways to keep the people here safe.”

Haley said the plan is to host a meeting each month on a different topic relevant to Wagoner citizens.

“The more involved people are in the community, the better off we all are,” Haley said.”



Reach Dylan Goforth at (918) 684-2903 or dgoforth@muskogeephoenix.com.

If you go



WHAT: Self-defense and drug awareness class.

WHERE: Wagoner Public Schools Performing Arts Center, 300 Bulldog Circle, Wagoner.

WHEN: 7 p.m. today.

ADMISSION: Free.

INFORMATION: (918) 485-5511.