Easton Russelburg was presented Tuesday with the 2020 Cap Gardner Employee of the Year Award for the City of Owensboro. Russelburg, a three-year veteran with the Owensboro Police Department, said he was surprised and honored by the recognition.
According to Mayor Tom Watson, the Cap Gardner Award was initiated in 2007 to honor an exemplary City of Owensboro employee. The award was named after Casper Gardner, a U.S. Navy and World War II veteran who served as Owensboro’s mayor from 1954-58 and was known for being a “dedicated public employee, community figure and loving family man.”
“Every year, our committee — comprised of a professional member of the community, a member of the neighborhood alliance, and a member of the rotary club — chooses [the winner] from the nominations that are submitted. This year, the winner was chosen anonymously,” Watson said.
Watson read aloud a story shared by one of the City employees who’d nominated Russelburg for the honor. It involved a single mother on welfare who called OPD about her son’s bicycle being stolen from their yard while she was at work.
“This was a significant loss for this family that could not be easily replaced,” he read.
“The nominee did not just take the report and leave. He took it upon himself to contact Walmart to secure a $25 gift card donation and secured the rest of the money to replace the bicycle himself. He delivered it and the mother was overwhelmed.”
Russelburg said he always carries with him an open-mindedness.
“You don’t know what people are going through on the backside of a situation,” he said. “A lot of people come from hard backgrounds that I didn’t come from, so I always try to remind myself of that.”
Russelburg said he used empathy and humanity to form good relationships between the citizens of Owensboro and OPD, saying the majority of his actions simply stemmed from “doing the right thing.”
“And that’s everyone in the police department. You’ll go through so many situations with so many different people,” he said. “I would say that more than 90% of the things officers do goes unnoticed.”
Russelburg said those in law enforcement don’t go into it for the recognition. Still, he said, it was nice to win an award that gave the community a chance to hear about the behind-the-scenes efforts police officers put into their jobs.
Russelburg said though a lot of the civilians he’s encountered are often intimidated by or distrusting of a uniformed officer at first, when he goes home and takes off his badge, he’s just a normal guy like everyone else.
“The five or six days a week that I’m working, I’m Officer Russelburg. But when I get off, I’m Easton,” he said. “A lot of times people are intimidated by the badge, but I’m a normal person too. I go home and do normal things with my family.”
The recipient of the Cap Gardner Award receives a plaque and has their name placed on a permanent memorial at Cap Gardner Park, located at JR Miller Boulevard. and East 20th Street.
