Local juvenile detention center workers honored

Kevin Hess, superintendent of the Mississippi County Juvenile Detention Center, and Linda Moore, shift supervisor at the detention center, create a personal ID for a new detainee while Linda Triplett, detention center aid, pictured foreground, enters the required shift notes in the detention center's control room Tuesday. Scott Welton, Staff

Kevin Hess, superintendent of the Mississippi County Juvenile Detention Center, and Linda Moore, one of the detention center's two shift supervisors, were selected for awards in their respective roles at the detention center.

The awards were announced during the 17th Annual National Symposium on Juvenile Services conducted Oct. 16 in Indianapolis.

"We just received notification Thursday," Hess said. "We've had recognition from the state before but this is national. It's a heck of a feeling being selected as one of the outstanding programs in the whole country."

Hess said these are the first national honors received by the juvenile detention center since its opening in 1999.

"It's great for the whole facility," Hess said. "While the people inside our state have recognized us and know we do a great job it just feels good to have a program that is recognized outside of Missouri. While we have these kids here we give them all the information and programming we can to make them better people when they go back into the community or their school."

Moore received the Bob Rader Detention Services Worker Award which recognizes the "hands on, day-to-day operations of a shift worker in direct contact with the juveniles," Hess said. "Not only does she work with the kids, she also supervises her shift of full-time workers plus three part-time workers."

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