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Mountie retires from Sooke D.A.R.E. program

Cpl. Scott Hilderley taught more than 2,500 kids about drug abuse during 20 years with the program
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RCMP Cpl. Scott Hilderley at Ecole Poirier Elementary school in Sooke on his last day with the D.A.R.E. program, which he’s been a part of for the last 20 years.

More than 20 years ago, an ecstatic RCMP officer Cpl. Scott Hilderley walked into Journey Middle School in Sooke to reach out to kids as a newly-appointed Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) coordinator.

This week, Hilderley announced he will be retiring from the D.A.R.E. program, as well as the RCMP, but still looks on with the same pride and ecstatic spirit as he did back then. To celebrate, he held his last presentation at Ecole Poirier Elementary school in Sooke.

For the special occasion, D.A.R.E. students even arrived with a unique bagpipe intro performed by Sooke Const. Jason From:

“I could think of no other way to wrap up my career than to do that which I love most, which is to promote the positive,” he said, adding most officers usually hang around in the program for more than two years.

“This is what I’ve always found the most value in doing. As police officers, we run around reacting, we’re trying to stop bad things that have happened, we’re going from call to call, putting out the same fires we put out last weekend that we’ll probably put out next weekend.”

Though a regular officer of West Shore RCMP over the last several years, Hilderley said the D.A.R.E. program gave him a chance to go back in time and build a positive well before things go wrong.

“They say that the best day to plant a tree was 20 years ago, feeling that second best is today. I feel I’ve been planting trees for seven years.”

One of his exercises was asking students to write a letter to themselves they’d read three years later, and many of those students, some in their 30s, remember those letters and how impactful his words were.

“It’s the best possible honour I could have.”

Hilderley served as police officer for 31 and a half years, 21 with the RCMP. He was also stationed in Courtneay-Comox, the Gulf Islands, as well as a military policeman in Chilliwack, three years in Moscow, Russia, and five years in Nova Scotia.

Now, looking back at his career, Hilderley is happy to call it a day on a good note.

“It’s a mixture of pride and sadness, but no regret. All the years that we’ve been policing, our heads are filled with memories we wish we didn’t have, so to balance it off with something positive is what I’m doing here.”

Following his retirement from the RCMP, Hilderley will be working for the Solicitor General department as an analyst, just “to ease into retirement mode.”