The Newton County Sheriff's Office Explorers recently received the 2012 National Explorers Excellence Award from Boy Scouts of America after exceeding specific objectives in order to obtain the award.

These objectives included, but are not limited to, community-oriented activities, handcuffing techniques, building searches, vehicle pull-overs and fingerprinting.

These Explorers have worked extremely hard and more than deserve this award.

Newton County Sheriff's Office also would like to extend a special thanks to the citizens of Newton County for their thoughtful donations to the program as well as to the deputies and investigators who act as advisors to the Explorers. Advisors in the program are Veronica Williams-Ramirez, Patrick Gilbert, Joey Salers, Mark Joyner and Priscilla Gilbert.

For information or to express interest in the Newton County Sheriff's Office Explorer program, please contact Deputy Patrick Gilbert at pgilbert@newtonsheriffga.org or (678) 625-1400.