Smith: SRJC student recognized by Boy Scouts for quick-thinking police call

Ryan Imschweiler could easily have frozen up, or freaked out.

He sat in the front passenger seat of a Sebastopol police cruiser that had just caught up with a car that had sped wildly through city streets one night earlier this year, run stop signs and shot across the centerline.

On Jewell Avenue, the car pulled into a driveway and the young man behind the wheel jumped out and bolted for the house. Sebastopol Officer Joe Furry took chase, grabbing him just as he opened the front door.

Back in the police car, Ryan, a 19-year-old SRJC student and member of Sebastopol’s Police Explorer program, watched as Furry wrestled with a man desperate to break free.

What Ryan did then has earned him praise and gratitude from Furry and the Sebastopol Police Department and, just the other day, an ovation from a large breakfast gathering of supporters of the regional Boy Scout council.

Enacting his training, Ryan picked up the cruiser’s two-way radio microphone and calmly, precisely reported where he was and why Officer Furry needed assistance ASAP.

Quickly, a second Sebastopol officer pulled up to help Furry arrest the drunken-driving suspect. Furry said, “My backup arrived just about the time I was about to run out of gas.”

The Explorer program Ryan hopes will lead to a career in law enforcement is affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America. Its Redwood Empire Council now is asking that he be honored with a national Medal of Merit for what he did when an officer urgently needed a hand.

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HOT-ROD BEAUTIES will grace a closed-off block of Santa Rosa’s Seventh Street on Friday for the grand opening of a wild new Art Museum of Sonoma County exhibit by Robert Williams.

He drew for Zap Comix and created collector art on cars with the late Ed “Big Daddy” Roth. The exhibit at the new Sonoma County museum is “SLANG Aesthetics: The Art of Robert Williams.”

Friday’s 5 to 9 p.m. $10 street happening won’t be your granddad’s art opening. Hot rod master Vern Tardel of Windsor will bring some of his sweetest cars, and food trucks will be there.

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DEREK DOES ALL 3: Hold your “Boo!”s when I tell you Tony and Patricia Hughes are fixing to be in Dodger Stadium on Sunday.

The Oakmonters have a grandson, Derek Hughes, who’s a baseball phenom - at 8. He triumphed in both the local and sectional phases of Major League Baseball’s “Pitch, Hit & Run” youth competition.

His grandfolks will be at Dodgerland on June 7 to cheer him and to see if he advances to the national finals at the All-Star game in Cincinnati on July 14.

Derek lives down near Magic Mountain and visits Sonoma County often with his parents and his greatest fan, fellow athlete and twin sister, Tanley.

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CUTTING WORK: I’ll be sorry to be off the job and out of the newspaper for part of June.

I’m having surgery to remove the prostate, a gland about which a fellow would prefer to remain oblivious. But cancer happens, and I’m grateful for the medical technology and doctors responsible for detecting mine years ago and for signaling that it’s time now to act.

The surgery is Monday. I’ve got no qualms, but I guess for the first 10 days or so it’s best that you don’t make me laugh.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @CJSPD.