RIVERSIDE - In September, the Riverside Police Department announced come the end of October, all Riverside police officers would sport a new police department patch on the sleeves of their uniforms. To create the new uniform patch, the police department decided to work with a student from Riverside Brookfield High School to come up with a new design.
The new patch will be cheaper for the department to produce – the new version costs $1.50 each compared to $5 for the old patch. The patch was designed to show off the village’s history, which is evidenced by the Riverside cityscape running across the bottom.
Interested in the process of creating the new patch, Suburban Life Editor Matthew Hendrickson talked with Riverside Brookfield High School student Rebecca Burke about how she got the chance to work with Sgt. Leo Kotor and Officer Eric Katzin on the project.
Matthew Hendrickson: Hey, Rebecca, tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from?
Rebecca Burke: My name is Rebecca Burke. I am 18 years old. I’ve lived in the same house in Brookfield for my entire life. I am a senior in high school at Riverside Brookfield.
Hendrickson: How did you get the opportunity to help design a new patch for the Riverside Police Department?
Burke: Last year, I was pulled out of my AP studio art class and escorted to the office where [Officer Eric Katzin] had been waiting for me in [Dean of Students David Sibley’s] office to ask if i was up for the job, and of course I was!
Hendrickson: What’s your background in art? Have you always been artistically inclined?
Burke: I've always had art in my life. It has always been something I have been interested in. I've always had an art class in my schedule at school and I have taken classes at the [School of the Art Institute in Chicago]. I usually do portraits of people's faces.
Hendrickson: What was your inspiration for the patch design? How did you come up with it?
Burke: Officer Katzin gave me all the elements they wanted incorporated in the patch and I laid out a few designs, and then he narrowed it down to the one that he and I liked most.
Hendrickson: What do you plan to do after high school?
Burke: I plan to attend Triton [College] for two years and then transfer to Columbia College in Chicago. I would love to be an art teacher, or do art therapy, for young boys and girls in juvenile [detention] facilities. But I also would love to be a pilot, so you never know.