This Student May Save Niceville Elementary Schoolers Lives With An Idea

In Brief:

🔸 🚶‍♂️ Fifth-grader Corbin Chasen asked the city to install a sidewalk near Plew Elementary as part of a school assignment.
🔸 📬 City officials, including the city manager and public works director, responded with a site visit and committed to the project.
🔸 🏛️ Chasen was publicly praised by the mayor and city staff for initiating a safety improvement not previously on the city’s radar.

Thanks to one Rocky Bayou Christian School fifth-grader, his dad, and the city of Niceville, walking to Plew Elementary School will be a little bit safer when school opens for classes in August.

The fifth grader, Corbin Chasen, is a resident of Niceville who lives near Plew Elementary School. As part of a school project, he wrote to Niceville City Manager David Deitch to request the installation of a sidewalk west of Plew Elementary on 27th Street, near Bailey Drive.

Despite the high volume of commuter and pedestrian traffic, there was no sidewalk area for part of the journey from houses to the south to Plaza Elementary School, where students must walk to reach their classes every day.

Chase’s mind that it constituted a safety issue that needed to be addressed as soon as possible.

After a site visit by City Manager Deitch and Niceville Public Works Director Jonathan Laird, the city was on board with putting in a sidewalk in the area.

“This wasn’t even on our radar,” Laird said to the city council when he described what happened next, “this young man noticed this, and now we’re putting a sidewalk on Bailey Drive for the safety of our young students to get to Plew Elementary because this young man right here dared to send a letter from a school project to our city manager and get this complete.”

City Manager David Deitch also praised Chasen’s initiative to help make positive change within the city. “Corbin, listen, I appreciate you. You sent me that letter like Jonathan said; we weren’t even tracking this as an issue, and then we looked at it. And I’ll tell you, the day that you and I were out there, I was shocked at the amount of cars that were going up and down that road. So, you were spot on that the sidewalk was a huge need for the kids walking to and from Blue Elementary. Thank you for noticing it, thank you for taking the time to reach out to me to identify that hazard for our kids, and for keeping our kids safe. I really appreciate you and just making this project possible.”

After receiving heaps of praise, Chasen was able to give everybody a laugh as well. Mayor Daniel Henkel asked him if he had anything to say and he replied, “well it was just a school assignment and my dad suggested it,” which was received with roaring laughter from the audience.

“But hey, Corbin, it still took you to make the action happen, ” Henkel said.