A student in the MPA program, Gaige McCoy completed his internship with the Boone Police Department. The agency's primary goal is to serve the Boone community with the highest standards of professional conduct through fair and impartial law enforcement. Gaige had this to say about his internship experience:
"First and foremost, it is important to mention that the Boone Police Department is an adaptive and flexible agency that places the needs of the community first. The Boone Police Department consistently goes above and beyond their call of duty to ensure that the peace, safety, and the tranquility of the Boone community is maintained and undisturbed. One of the highlights of my internship experience was finishing and presenting a project to the Boone Chief of Police that assisted the command staff in allocating a new officer position. This project required a lot of manual input and required me to dust off my notes from my statistics and research methods courses at Appalachian. The data produced some interesting results and will be beneficial for the department in the future. I was personally recognized for my contributions by the Chief after my presentation. In that moment, I felt like I had accomplished something significant which is what I set out to do at the beginning of the internship. I hope to conduct and develop similar projects in the future that can assist other agencies with their staffing allocations.
This experience has highlighted some of the most important values emphasized by public administration and how they are interrelated and connected within the profession of law enforcement. Trust, equity, honesty, integrity, and responsibility are all characteristics that were demonstrated daily by the officers at the Boone Police Department. The Boone Police Department was incredibly receptive during this internship and provided many opportunities that I am extremely grateful to have been given. Captain LeBeau took me under his wing and showed me what it takes be an effective public steward at the local law enforcement level. This experience has allowed me to formulate a comprehensive picture of local law enforcement by giving me the opportunity to experience their struggles and achievements first hand. I hope to apply these lessons to my academic work and in my future career to further innovate and advance the profession. After graduation, I plan on relocating to a beach somewhere in Florida and leaving the cold behind. I hope to get my start within a local law enforcement agency and advance into administration. Eventually, I would like to take an agent position and transfer to Florida’s investigative state law enforcement agency, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE). "