OSHP 2 to compete for top honor

The two will now compete for the state title.
WARREN -- The Warren post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol has selected two employees to receive honors.
Jerad Sutton is Warren post Trooper of the Year for 2004, and Michelle D. Higgins is selected for the 2004 Ohio State Highway Patrol Telecommunications Award at the Warren post.
The two were selected after employees at the post voted for who they felt deserved the award.
Sutton, 30, of Warren, and Higgins, 31, of Mecca, will now compete for the state title, said Lt. George Williams.
"Both of these employees will now be entered in the district competition," Williams explained. "If they win at district they will go up against all the other district winners for the state competition."
Warren's district includes Ashtabula, Chardon, Ravenna, Lisbon and Canfield, Williams said.
"This is a big honor," Williams noted. "They both have done an outstanding job, and we're very proud."
Their backgrounds
Sutton, 30, who joined the patrol in June 1999, was selected by his peers based on leadership skills, job knowledge, work attitude, teamwork and professionalism.
The Badger High School (Kinsman) graduate lives in Warren with his wife, Amy, and their daughter, Analyse. Sutton was promoted to an assistant post commander in October and has recently been assigned to the Medina post, Williams said.
Higgins, 31, a Maplewood High School graduate, joined the patrol last year. She received the award after troopers and dispatchers rated her on her technical job knowledge, ability, enthusiastic work attitude, and courteous response to the public's requests for information and assistance.
She resides in Mecca with her two children, Kaitlyn and Abbagail.