Lavonia Police Win 2013 SUV

The Lavonia Police Department has a new vehicle on patrol. 

Police Chief Bruce Carlisle announced Monday, his department won a 2013 Chevy Tahoe last week while attending  Governor’s Office of Highway Safety awards banquet in Macon.

“The Lavonia Police Department has participated in the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Governor’s Safety Challenge for the past 13 years and last Friday we attended the annual awards banquet in Macon,” Carlisle said. 

Carlisle said one of the highlights of the annual banquet is a special drawing at the end that only a handful of Sheriff’s and Police Chiefs get to take part in.

 “To be chosen as a participant in the drawing, Harris Blackwood, the Director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety pulls ten names out of a hat and the Lavonia Police Department was one of those ten,” he said. 

Each of the ten sends a representative up to pull  a key out of a hat, Carlisle said, to see if it fits a special lock.  If it does, that department won the prize, which this year was a fully equipped 2013 Chevrolet Tahoe.  Carlisle said he chose Captain Michael Schulman for the job and with good reason.

 “There’s a long running joke about Capt. Schulman that when he goes to the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety regional meetings, he always walks away with a pretty nice door prize, so there was no question as to who I was going to send up on stage for the drawing,” Carlisle said. 

That decision paid off big. When Schulman put his key in the lock and turned it, blue lights started flashing, meaning he won. 

“I was in shock,” Schulman said. “It took me a moment to realize what had happened.”  

Carlisle said the SUV will used eventually for patrols, but first he will be driving it around for awhile. 

Right now, the Tahoe has the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety on the sides, but Carlisle said that will eventually go away the SUV will be repainted with the Lavonia Police Department Colors.