City Staff Win "Telly" Awards for Educational Video Series

Staff in the City of Lake Wales Communications & Engagement Department and Police Department were awarded four 2024 Telly Awards in four categories for their "Locating a Missing Person – Police K-9 Unit" video – Social Video for People's Telly Award, Public Relations, Health & Safety for Social Video and Education & Training.

The video features Sergeant Matthew Rhoden, K-9 Officer Michael Yodonis and K-9 Officer Rhaegar track a missing person from the scent of an article of clothing. Lieutenant Dale Hampton narrates the video, featuring Shay Irvis as the missing person.

"When we return a missing person back to friends and family, there's no price tag you can put on that," said Lieutenant Dale Hampton.

More K-9 videos are in pre-production to show citizens the onboarding process of a K-9 officer.

"The whole process fascinates me," said Eric Marshall, communications and engagement director. "From the selection process to the time spent bonding between the K-9 and the K-9 officer handler to the extensive training program – I know our citizens will be captivated."

The video series will be a resource for schools and organizations to reference before and after an on-site K-9 demonstration by the Lake Wales Police Department.

The Telly Awards honor excellence in video and television across all screens. Founded in 1979 to honor local, regional and cable television commercials, with non-broadcast video and television programming added soon after, the award has evolved with the rise of digital video to include branded content, documentary, social media, immersive video and more.