July 2002 Volume 83 Number 7 "serving the protectors"
Living his dream
By Brett Williams

The latest winner of the Police Officer of the Year Award feels no more special than any of his colleagues. But those who nominated Leo Price have described him in terms one could almost apply to a saint.

As country police officer, Leo Price, stood in busy Rundle Mall one day last month, he did not recognize a single face. And, to him, a sea of unfamiliar faces in the centre of a town has become something of a foreign concept. In all the southern Flinders Ranges towns he polices, he knows every face – and likes it that way.

Stationed at Booleroo Centre since 1997, Price, 38, loves the “intimacy” of country life, and its strong sense of community.

“It’s a bit like living in a fishbowl,” he says, “nothing’s private, and everyone knows everyone’s business. But everyone’s there to look after you, and back you up.”

Price illustrates his point with the story of a local butcher who lost his son in a head-on car crash two years ago. In what seemed an instant, the entire community had rallied around the grieving father and his family. The overwhelming support and comfort it gave them left Price staggered.

More than 2,000 people went to the young man’s funeral, at which extra police had to control traffic. “It made me sit back,” says Price, “and say: ‘Well, this is what country living’s all about’. You never see support for individuals like that anywhere else.”

So what had brought Price into the chaotic midday environment of Rundle Mall on June 4? He had won the Unley Rotary Club Police Officer of the Year Award for 2001, and was about to collect his prize.

Amid the pomp of a formal ceremony with the Band of the SA Police, the humble country cop accepted a plaque and framed certificate.

Before a telephone call in which he learned of his good fortune a few weeks earlier, Price had not known even of his nomination. The news of his new title shocked him.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I don’t think I’m any different from millions of other coppers who are out there working hard.

“It’s a huge honour, and very humbling. The greatest judges for us are those of our own community. For them to nominate me is the biggest tick of approval I can get.”

The District Council of Mount Remarkable had nominated Price for the award. Its acting CEO, Phyllis Robinson, offered some high praise of him in a letter to the Unley Rotary Club. She wrote of the husband and father of two as “representing all that is good and just in mankind”.

And, after the mall ceremony, she spoke of Price as the most outstanding police officer she had ever known. “We (at the council) think very highly of him,” she says. “He’s a very unbiased, impartial man, who can see all sides of any matter, and he just always does things justly. He’s a good man.”

The police district Price covers is in the North East LSA, stretches over 4,000 sq km and has a population of 2,000. So, beyond his one-man station in Booleroo Centre, his beat takes in towns such as Melrose, Tarcowie and Wilmington.

But when Price finishes a shift, relaxation time is rarely a feature of his agenda. He endlessly involves himself with his community, and holds a position on each of six local boards, committees and programmes.

“I had never been on a committee in my life.”

Only seven months after his 1997 arrival in Booleroo Centre, he joined the board of 25-bed aged-care facility, Mount View Home for the Aged. In 2000, he took over the board’s chairmanship, which carried ultimate responsibility for the home’s $2.5 million turnover.

Price also enjoys a strong involvement with the Booleroo Centre District School, where he has set up drug and alcohol awareness programme, Right on Target. Its aim is not only to alert students to the dangers of substance abuse, but also to teach them essential life skills.

In other roles, Price serves as the Mount Remarkable Disaster Plan Committee chairman and the Booleroo Centre Golf Club vice-president. As well, he is the chairman of a community road safety committee and a member of the Booleroo Centre Rural Watch area.

“I had never been on a committee in my life,” says Price, “until I went to Booleroo Centre. But little communities don’t function unless people put in, and do their bit. I was keen to do it both as a policeman and a community member.

“Mount View employs 26 local people, so it’s a real cornerstone of the economy of our little community. I was keen to see it doing well, and that’s what I worked hard to try to achieve.”

Of his work with school students, Price says it is the role of police to “engender relationships with youth”. And, to him, such a role is no hardship: he relishes any opportunities that bring him “closer to kids”.

“I’ve had kids walk into my office and talk to me about different problems they’ve been experiencing,” he says. “They’ve passed on information to me – that perhaps they normally wouldn’t have – because they know me a bit better.”

Former North East LSA boss, Chief Inspector Bryan Fahy, sees great value in Price’s deep community involvement.

“He’s very mindful of the need not to segregate the community but to work with them and bring them all together,” he says. “Then, when they do have problems, they can solve them collectively.

“My ambitions are not to climb the corporate ladder.”

“All of the officers in the North East LSA are very proud of his achievements, and very supportive of him.”

A former Seacombe High School boy and the son of a postman, Price joined the police force as a 17-year-old in 1982. From 1984 – after only a short stint in city policing – he worked in country posts, such as Port Lincoln, Woomera and Kadina.

In the early-’90s, he returned to the metro area before taking up a post at Victor Harbor. There he stayed for fours years before he transferred to Booleroo Centre.

Of his 20-year career, Price says he is fulfilling a childhood dream. His earliest memories are those of an ambition only to be a policeman. So, on reflection, he believes life has “dealt me a good hand”.

Price concedes, however, that he has had moments of discontent. “Anyone who’s been doing any job over a long period,” he says, “will go through times where they’ve had a gutful, and seriously look at other options.

“I’ve been through that. But find another job with our variety and conditions. I don’t know that you will.”

So Price expects to remain a cop for rest of his working days. He is not attracted to high-paid jobs such as PR in the corporate world, despite the exceptional communication skills with which his supporters credit him.

“My ambitions are not to climb the corporate ladder,” he says. “My ambitions are to do what I’m doing, and set goals within my own community.

“I work long hours from home, but I see my wife and kids a lot. That’s a mix that not many people have.”

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