Presidents Letter
2024 DARE Conference: July 14th-16th in Dubuque, Ia
Good morning Iowa DARE Officers,
I hope you all had an enjoyable and refreshing summer
break! I want to start by thanking
Deputy Cameron Van Zante for hosting another successful DARE conference in
Indianola this summer. I always enjoy
going to the DARE conference every year to visit new communities and so we can
all reconnect.
Now that it’s time to get back into our schools and connect
with our kids again, I just wanted to reach out to all of you and introduce
myself to everyone and give you some information for this next year. My name is Jason Hoerner from the Dubuque
Police Department and I am honored to be serving as the President of the Iowa
DARE Officer Association this year. I
have been with the Dubuque PD for 21 years and have been involved with DARE
since 2008. I started teaching DARE part
time on my days off from patrol and then continued teaching part time when I
became an SRO. In 2020, I was fortunate
enough to become the full time DARE Officer in Dubuque
The
2024 Iowa DARE Conference will be held in Dubuque from July 14-16, 2024 at the
Best Western Plus Hotel and Conference Center. I am excited to be bringing this conference
back to Dubuque and for those of you that have attended this conference in
Dubuque in the past, you will see some changes in the venue. As I mentioned in closing at this summer’s
conference, we all have to be very vigilant in making room reservations. There is a block of rooms reserved for us,
but any rooms not reserved will be released 30 days prior to the
conference. I am working on finding a
back-up hotel just in case, but I have already been warned by multiple hotels
that room availability during the summer will be less than normal due to all of
the activities at the Field of Dreams complex in Dyersville, which is expected
to be busier than the last couple of years.
The block of rooms is now open to make reservations and I know it’s
early yet but please make your reservations as soon as possible. You will need to call the Best Western at 563-557-8000 and tell them that you’re
making a reservation under the block code “DARE 2024.” If you experience any problems with this
process, let me know and I will look into it.
This year’s theme is “DARE to be your best.” We had another great bunch of essays
submitted this last year which made judging them a bit of a challenge, but that
is a good thing, and I look forward to the challenge again this year! We all
teach some really outstanding students and I think we can all say that the
different things they learn from us can go a long ways to help them be the best
they can be.
I hope all of you can join us in Dubuque next summer and
take advantage of what we have to offer.
There are also some other surrounding communities that are nice to visit
so this could be an opportunity to make this a nice little family vacation
while you’re here.
I will send out more information throughout the school year
and reach out to me if you need anything.
Have a great year and stay safe.
D.A.R.E. Coordinator/School Resource Officer
Dubuque Police Department
770 Iowa Street
Dubuque, Iowa 52001
Office: 563-587-3640
jhoerner@cityofdubuque.org
