PANAMA CITY — This month Barrett Jackson is going to be watching for drunk and disorderlies and DUIs while he patrols Panama City Beach on Spring Break. And after his Sunday shift, he’ll wake up at 3 a.m. to make a six-hour drive to Baton Rouge, La.
“If you like pine trees, you’re in heaven,” Jackson said of the drive.
Along with his work in the Bay County Sheriff’s Office Reserve, he attends law school at Louisiana State University; classes go from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Monday and then Tuesday it’s 1:50 p.m. to 6 p.m.
“That’s just lectures,” Jackson said. “When I’m not working at the Sheriff’s Office, I’m doing law school.”
Jackson drives back from Baton Rouge and works Thursday through Sunday in Callaway. He’s hopeful his hectic schedule will be worth it when he’s eventually accepted into a federal law enforcement agency; he’s gunning for the FBI but doesn’t want to set his expectations too high.
Jackson was sworn in nearly three years ago and already has worked through one degree, with a shorter drive to Tallahassee as he got his master’s in criminology. The Panama City native intended to follow in the family business, starting pre-med at the University of Florida. He went through a slew of major choices and eventually ended up at Florida International University in Miami before choosing criminal justice; he already made it out of the police academy.
For now, though, Jackson’s plans for a family are on hold as he chases his career goals. He’s set to finish his law degree in August.
Jackson is one of many people going back to school while working in career jobs. All of them are concerned with advancement, but all have individual motivations — righting a wrong, pursuing a career change or working for his or her family. In 2011, about 8.8 million people over the age of 25 attended college, about 40 percent of the total number of students in degree granting institutions, according to National Center for Education Statistics. Of those, 3.7 million were people age 35 or older.
J. Wynn: Studying psychology: When Panama City employees step into J. Wynn’s office, they’re often angry.
As the benefits administrator for the city, Wynn is in charge of all medical insurance questions for city employees. She wants to go to bat for all the employees who feel spurned, but she also works as a guide — willing to navigate people through a maze of co-pays, out-of-pocket maxes and ACA regulations.
“In every discussion, I’m the middle person,” Wynn said. “I fight for what’s right.”
She knows to not take it personally when employees unleash a rant in her vicinity. Often it’s not even directed at her, but still it provides a foundation for fatigue. “The job is mentally exhausting,” Wynn said.
Regardless of fatigue, one day a week, Wynn will go from City Hall to Troy University’s local campus for a class needed to complete her master’s in psychology. Even those days, Wynn will get home and take care of her two children — 8-year-old Michael and 16-year-old Erykah. Erykah Wynn is mostly independent these days, but J. Wynn’s normal routine with Michael is to have him sit at the kitchen counter while she prepares dinner and he works on homework.
When everything is settled, that’s when she attacks her school work — an every night routine. She almost always falls asleep with her laptop or textbook on top of her.
She is willing to sacrifice sleep in order to be there for her children as much as possible. She is determined to go to all of Michael’s sporting events. Erykah Wynn is a budding manga artist — participating in competitions and having the Japanese-inspired art displayed in the Visual Arts Center — and Wynn transports her daughter to all those events.
J. Wynn’s husband, Omega, is the district manager for Starbucks, for an area encompassing Bay County and Tallahassee. When he is home he helps out as much as possible, but he travels often.
Her goal is to become a human resources director. “You get to see the whole picture,” J. Wynn said.
When they were younger, she took a back seat to her husband’s career aspirations; her bachelor’s is in business administration and she previously worked as a hospital statistician and an office manager for a real estate agent in Atlanta and Tallahassee. Now that he is in a stable position in a city they enjoy, she can follow her own career path.
Jean Marie Leles: Studying nursing: Going to school for Jean Marie Leles is about a continuing career reinvention.
During the day she is the nurse for Hyperbaric Medical Oxygen Therapy in Destin. Hyperbaric therapy, which simulates the pressurized air inside a submarine at set depths, can treat conditions that vary from diabetes to bed sores, brain trauma and other wounds. Leles’ job is to stay with patients and adjust depths if there are complications.
Leles already has a master’s in business administration and previously worked for Gulf Coast State College and was the financial aide director for Florida Keys Community College. She was out of the work force for 10 years at the behest of her ex-husband. After she got a divorce, she realized no one wanted to hire a woman in her ’50s. With classes through Gulf Coast Community College, she got her certification as a registered nurse.
“I would hear about it all the time on the news how there were all these jobs in the health-care field,” she said.
Leles is currently taking online classes with Gulf Coast to complete her bachelor’s in nursing. The end goal is to be a nurse practitioner at a clinic.
Lisa Womack: Studying education administration: Lisa Womack’s fiancé, David, will sometimes complain that all she does is bury her face in textbooks.
She happens to get home from work first, and each half of the couple will fend for themselves at dinner time. She has given him the concession that she will not be taking classes when they are married this summer.
Womack is studying for her masters in education administration. Her free time is consumed with research papers and collaborative projects with her online classmates at West Florida University. She aspires to be a principal or assistant principal mainly so she can be responsible for curriculum decisions.
The current curriculum is a constant part of Womack’s working responsibilities as one of Bay District Schools’ literacy coaches. Womack’s home base is Waller Elementary, but she travels to elementary schools around the county. Much of Womack’s coaching is for teachers to help them with new standards, model lesson plans and instruction on how to work with specific students. She works from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. most school days, with meetings and other work coming before and after school.
Womack started her master’s courses in August — about the same time she shifted from middle school to elementary school literacy. Much of her teaching career, nine of 12 years, was as a sixth grade teacher. Now, much of her focus is on kindergarten through second-graders. One of the biggest changes is catering lessons with fidgeting 6-year-olds in mind.
“It’s been quite a shift,” she said.
However, the change environment is good if Womack wants to be an administrator.
“Classroom teachers, we get in our own little world,” she said. “We don’t see what the district is trying to accomplish.”
Diane Hagler: Studying business administration: Diane Hagler is on a furious charge to complete her master’s, having just completed her bachelor’s in business administration, to make up for lost time.
Hagler married young at 17 and started having children at age 20; she explained that was the expectation of her growing up in Ozark, Alabama. She was married seven years before she got a divorce.
“That just wasn’t me,” she said.
She has worked for the city of Panama City for 15 years, moving back to where her husband once was stationed in the Navy. She worked in payroll most of that time but recently was promoted to a risk management position.
“I’ve had people tell me, ‘I liked you better in payroll,’ ” Hagler said. “As long as it’s not personal, there won’t be a conflict.”
Hagler said she would be happy living the rest of her life in Panama City but wants to be a human resources director. For now, she wants to keep advancing so she can spoil her two grandchildren who live in town.
“I have more flexibility now to do things with my grandchildren than I did with my children,” she said.
Mike Wombles: Studying criminology and criminal behavior: Bay County Criminal Investigator Mike Wombles’ goal on Monday morning was to pick up a suspect for an interview; he was not close to an arrest in any form, but he wanted to talk.
Wombles has learned well-laid plans go awry in this job, where he never has the same day twice; he could not find the suspect. The rest of the day he spent going through case files and examining evidence. Search warrants often are written for documents — anyone who thinks his life as an investigator is constant excitement is wrong. The majority of the job is doing interviews, trying to learn the story and examining evidence.
He’ll work eight hours like this, unless there’s a murder or other serious investigation and then he’ll work way more. After a long day, Wombles sits down with textbooks. He recently completed his master’s degree in criminology and criminal behavior. The majority of his free time, including every weekend, was committed to reading and writing.
He took a month of vacation to complete his thesis.
“I thought I was going crazy a couple of times,” Wombles said.
He said there are two types of necessary investigators with the Sheriff’s Office: the hard charging person who wants to make the arrests and clear cases, and officers concerned with their place in the community. Wombles’ course of study illustrates he belongs to the latter classification.
Criminals, at first glance, seem to have simple motivations — driven to crime by poverty or opportunity. Wombles knows thieves that steal with money in their pockets; the decision is more about the thrill than having anything to gain. However, it’s not like financial factors aren’t in play. Wombles talked about the broken window theory: a broken window in a neighborhood encourages crime because of blight.
One of the features Wombles studies to prevent theft was environmental improvements to apartment complexes — such as higher fences and better lighting. Burglars won’t be encouraged by objects they cannot see.
But, Wombles’ classes also have taught him biological factors can cause people to commit crime. It’s not necessarily that people are predisposed crime; plenty children of criminals never become criminals. However, a natural tendency toward poor impulse control does correlate to a higher likelihood of committing a crime.
Eventually, Wombles wants to teach, when he hangs up his badge.
Chevina Jackson: Studying law enforcement intelligence: Chevina Jackson has to put herself in the victim’s position. She needs to understand they are often angry, hurt, confused and shocked all at the same time.
As Bay County Sheriff’s Office’s victim advocate, sometimes she relays good news — money in our budget from the attorney general is going to pay for hospital expenses. Sometimes it’s bad news — don’t be disheartened that the suspect is walking out of jail on bail.
“It can be very emotional — anytime there is a death, anytime there are kids,” she said. “You try to compartmentalize.”
Jackson is usually pretty tired after a full day’s work — and sometimes it’s more than eight hours — but she pushes through that to complete the course work for her bachelor’s degree in law enforcement intelligence. Some nights she has classes at Florida State University Panama City, where she is scheduled to graduate in May.
Jackson is also a single mother, raising her 12-year-old daugther.
“My daughter’s probably the weight that she is because I can’t cook all the time,” Jackson said of her slender daughter.
The social calendar is packed. Last weekend, the younger Jackson had a middle school dance Friday and then woke up early for a karate tournament the next day.
Her daughter is part of Jackson’s motivation to want to move up the career ladder, but she already has made significant strides. For 15 years, Jackson did airbrushing and made gift baskets in Moreno Valley, California. She ended up moving to Panama City in 2006 after her husband was diagnosed with cancer because his family originates in Bay County. She got a job at BCSO as a communications officer during that time before he died in 2007.
Jackson was content working as a dispatcher when Lt. Andy Thomas recommended she become a victim advocate. She originally turned it down; at the time it seemed like a daunting change.
“When you’re asked to step up, you don’t turn it down,” she said. “He saw something in me that I could do this.”
Jackson is currently non-sworn, but her classes deal with crime scene investigation, obtaining search warrants and interviewing witnesses.
“I want to be more diverse,” she said.