Winter 2009 Issue

 

Ronda Guyton

"My life experiences have helped me see more than what's on the surface."

Ronda Guyton

 

by Amy Spies Karhliker

“I want to help somebody else move forward,” explains UIS alumna Ronda Guyton ’04 PAA.

“Family is first,” she insists. “Then you need to go out and help in the community. It’s not just about you. It’s about service to other people. I mean, what is your purpose on this Earth?”

In her quest to help other people “move forward,” Guyton has taken on poverty and injustice both professionally and personally. Professionally, Guyton serves the public as a Peoria County Sheriff’s deputy; in her personal life, she brings charisma and commitment to improving children’s chances at succeeding.

Guyton has an effusive personality. She mostly beams. And she’s got a great sense of humor – something you may not expect from someone who grew up in a difficult environment.

Guyton grew up in the Harris Homes on Peoria’s south side – a public housing neighborhood not known for comfort or congeniality. She lived with her mother and two younger brothers; Guyton’s own father was absent at that time. As a child, she found herself in many instances where she was the primary caregiver for the boys. She left home three times by the time she was 16 – and was a teenage mother.

She knows, however, that in her life circumstances of being the mediating factor between her baby brothers and her mother, that helping others to “move forward” is a calling in her life. At a particular moment of need in her life, two police officers and a detective talked with Ronda in a way that made her take notice – in a good way. “Through everything that was happening,” she said, “these officers could really talk to me. I wanted to be that for someone else.”

It was this experience – followed by several other incidences involving the police – that compelled Guyton to become interested in a career in law enforcement. She finally asked, “How do I get to be a police officer?”

When Guyton turned 16, she left home for the last time. A friend of her grandmother’s owned a candy store that had a house attached to it. For $250 a month, Guyton lived there, went to school and worked at a fast-food restaurant. She often had a hard time making the rent, “but the owners were generous,” she said. Sometimes, she couldn’t get to school because she had no transportation.

Guyton credits Good Beginnings, a national program implemented by local nonprofit organizations like the Children’s Home Association in Peoria – an organization that has served children and their families for more than 140 years – with helping her and her baby make it: “They picked me up at home, took Robert to daycare and me to school. Then, at the end of the day, they picked me up from school, picked Robert up from daycare and took me home,” she said.

“These people showed me something different,” she said. “This program was life-changing. The women who worked there really cared.”

Moving forward
Despite the circumstances of her short life, Guyton still graduated from high school in the top third of her class.

After she graduated, she joined the Army Reserves. Guyton was assigned to an overseas unit and was able to go to Italy. Again, she was shown that life could be different. She was able to meet people, talk with them and travel.

After Basic Training, she landed a job at a local bank. One of the bank’s board members, who also served on the Merit Commission for the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office, knew of Guyton’s interest in becoming a police officer and told her that the county was testing for new deputies.

In 1994, when she turned 21, Guyton applied to the sheriff’s department as a correctional officer and secured the position.

Finally, she was making a little money, she was serving her country, seeing the world and meeting people. She realized there were alternatives to life than what her own experience had shown her.

As good as all of that was, though, Guyton didn’t yet have her dream job.

Finally, in 1997, Guyton was commissioned as a deputy and attended the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was assigned to a neighborhood as part of the community policing initiative. She loved community policing because she was able to get to know everyone in her assigned neighborhood. All of the kids knew her and knew her to be fair.

She credits her childhood experiences with being able to communicate with troubled youth: “My childhood gave me the insight that everything you see is not always what it is. Because of my own experience,” she said, “I know that people keep secrets and are hiding things in their lives that can be interpreted as ‘attitude,’ an edge, or negativity, when it’s not.”

She continued, “I understand that ‘this’ is what I’m looking at, but it isn’t the core or the whole point. So I ask questions that some people might think are not relevant, but help me understand what’s going on.”

All of the pain of her childhood has resulted in compassion: “I’m more sympathetic with rape victims, sexual abuse and assault victims,” she said. “My life experiences have helped me see more than what’s on the surface.”

Guyton knows that the kids appreciate her outlook, too. “The thing I love about my job is that I have discretion and flexibility. The kids know I’ll give them once. But after that chance, they know, ‘it’s on me,’ and hopefully they won’t be willing to take that risk again.”

As a kind of confirmation of the talent, moxie and awareness that Guyton brings to the job, she has taken on the responsibility of training rookie deputies as a field training officer, a volunteer responsibility Guyton takes seriously. In this capacity, Guyton serves her department by training new professionals, she serves younger deputies and her colleagues by teaching them to “be safe” on the job, and she serves the community by helping younger deputies develop into better, more connected police.

Further, Guyton received the Life Saving Award in 2005 from her department for saving the life of a man who had been beaten by his son. Because of her community policing assignment, Guyton knew this young man and he told her what he did, which helped her make on-the-spot decisions that resulted in saving his father’s life. When she was transferred from her community policing assignment, Medina Township recognized her for Outstanding Service to the community. And she has received letters of commendation for her military service and her police work.

Guyton celebrates Spring '05 Commencement with friend Angi Adams, also a CRJ '04 graduate.

A future
Part of overcoming her past has been Guyton’s emphasis on her education. Her cousin, who had always pushed her to “do better,” said, “What kind of role model are you going to be?” and “You can’t be a police officer forever.”

Guyton’s first step was to attend Illinois Central College in Peoria. After a few semesters, she went to the UIS Peoria campus office, where she met Jana Wise, director of the Upper Division Instructional Support Center at the UIS Peoria Center. Wise encouraged Guyton to continue going to school at ICC – the credits would transfer to UIS.

“Something clicked,” said Guyton, “and things just started rolling from there. I thought about the legacy I would leave and the example I would set for my kids: I got all As, I worked a full-time job and a part-time job [as a security officer at a grocery store], I am a mother and a wife.”

She received two scholarships to finish her education at UIS and maintained an excellent grade point average, which earned her a place on the Dean’s List and the National Dean’s List. After she is done being a police officer, Guyton would like to get her master’s degree, teach and write a book.

“Somewhere along the line,” she reflects, “it clicked that I can’t change anything that happened, but I can change the way people see me and what I leave behind.”

Giving back
In 2007 and 2008, Guyton was elected the Worthy Matron of Silver Star #74, the Order of the Eastern Star, which is the Masonic service organization of wives, daughters, widows, mothers and sisters of Free Masons. She is also a member of the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, an organization dedicated to public service, leadership development and the education of children. Further, she has served on the board of directors for the George Washington Carver Community Center, where Head Start, before and after-school programs, Alcoholics Anonymous, a community theater and other critical community programs are available.

Through all of these organizations, she has begun programs to address the needs of school children by providing – often out of her own pocket – materials for schools and programs, as well as backpacks, school supplies, coats and tennis shoes. Without this assistance, the Head Start program at the Community Center would be hard pressed to provide children – perhaps some of whom are the children of teenage mothers like she had been – a chance at succeeding in school.

And her husband of more than a decade and three sons have participated in all of this with her. While she has disconnected her children from her own experiences as much as possible – protected them from those adversities – she also involves them in her volunteer activities so that they are “aware of people who are less fortunate.”

Because of the many people who showed Guyton another way to live, “it would be shameful for me not to intervene,” she says. “They might not have realized it at the time – I might not have realized it at the time – but they did so much for me.”

Guyton was also instrumental in getting the UIS Alumni Peoria Chapter off the ground. She has served as a co-chair of the chapter and represented the chapter for a number of public relations efforts. It’s no surprise, then, that Guyton received the 2008 Loyalty Award for her commitment to her Alma Mater.

At 36, she is a successful professional, an altruist, a wife and mother. She has lived the American dream in many ways. Yet, challenges remain. And like all parents, Guyton worries about the decisions her children make. But, she will continue to move forward herself, and take her family and the community with her.