Monday, May 6, 2024
One lucky child in Hood County will get the opportunity to have their own design come to life and worn on the uniforms of Hood County Precinct 3 constables and the new patrol car.
Precinct 3 Constable Randy Ellis is holding a contest for Hood County children between the ages of five to 14 to design his new uniform patch.
“When I started running for constable, I started designing my badge,” Ellis said. “I thought ‘If I'm going to be my own department, I want to be set apart from the other departments,’ and I had such fun doing that. It was like the coolest thing that I was like, ‘I'm going to design the patch.’ I have four kids and I thought, ‘If I'm having this much fun, the kids are gonna love it,’ so I'm trying to get all the kids involved with it.”
The patch will be designed on a template that can either be emailed to the parents or picked up at the Precinct 3 office as well as local participating churches or restaurants like Cari’s and Pam’s Too in Acton.
The top three designs will be picked out by staff at the Hood County Precinct 3 Constable’s Office, but the final design will be voted on by the public on social media. The first-place winner will receive a $100 gift card and will become the official uniform patch of Precinct 3.
The second-place entrant will receive a $50 gift card and a $25 gift card will go to the third-place entry.
After the final design is selected, it can take up to 30 days for the patch to be completed.
“If they want to get an idea of what a patch looks like, they can get with their parents and let their parents do a search on the internet to show them what different patches look like, but I know the kids are going to come up with something that nobody's ever thought about, so the patch is going to be unique,” Ellis said. “Most of the time, people would want it to say, ‘Hood County Constable Precinct 3,’ like there are certain things that probably should be in it, but the courthouse could be in it, handcuffs, an eagle holding a flag, but it's got to make sense and relate to law enforcement.”
All entrants must submit their artwork and contact information by Tuesday, June 14, to: Constable Randy Ellis, 5417 Acton Highway Suite 103, Granbury, TX 76049.
“This is what we're supposed to do. You're supposed to live in the precinct that you run in, which means that's my community, so I need to involve my community as much as I can,” Ellis added. “This could be something that I do every term too, like if I win again, we'll just change patches every two or four years or something.”
Individuals can send an email to rellis@co.hood.tx.us or adykes@co.hood.tx.us to receive the template. For more information, call Ellis at 817-408-2560
