The right to remain retired
Campus officer Dan Moon retires after 16 years of service.
With a 20 pound duty belt on his waist as well as a positive attitude, Dan Moon, police officer, has been returning to BOHS with the students and staff every Fall for 16 years — however, after 16 years of service, Moon will retire at the end of the year.
“I’m going to miss the day to day fun of getting to work with [the students] and getting to participate in school activities. It has been a tremendous blessing for me to be in this position and to be able to do it for 16 years and to know all the people that I’ve gotten to know and to see all the kids that I’ve been able to see progressing the years,” Moon said.
Despite serving as a police officer for 27 years, the occupation was not one he saw ever himself pursuing his college years. After graduating Cal State Fullerton in 1983, he was faced with the dilemma of either becoming a teacher or a lawyer. Eventually, Moon went on to attend Western State University of Law, a venture he dropped after realizing that “lawyering was not meant to be.”
Moon came back to Cal State Fullerton to achieve his teaching credential and with it, he was able to be a student teacher in BOHS for one full year . Besides teaching academic classes such as world history, he also coached swimming and water polo. However, once the campus relocated in 1989 from the present day Brea Marketplace Shopping Center to its current location, Moon was forced to find another job as the school no longer had any need for his position as student teacher. It was then that a friend suggested that Moon try police work that same year.
Moon was assigned to BOHS by the Brea Police Department in order to curtail and minimize, delay, and stop drug use. Due to his conviction that early intervention prevents future conflicts, Moon hopes to see BOHS enforce harsher consequences for first offenses in order to save teenagers from potentially harmful brain damage. Teenagers who resort to drugs have a one in two chance of developing a mental disorder, according to Moon.
His strong beliefs quickly shaped the direction of the high school’s atmosphere and environment.
“Moon was always there as a safeguard, and he was always an extra set of eyes by keeping us updated with the pulse of the community,” Jerry Halpin, principal, said.
“When you think of what the term a ‘school resource officer’ is, Moon really fits the bill. He worked with us in a direction that ensured we did not do anything to violate anybody’s rights. Moon was always there as a safeguard, and he was always an extra set of eyes by keeping us updated with the pulse of the community,” Jerry Halpin, principal, said.
Compared to when he first started his law enforcement career in BOHS, Moon states that there have been notable advancements in communication devices and ways of policing, especially with the consistent everyday officer patrols on campus. These developments have made the last six to seven years “very good years,” according to Moon.
In the future, with his Master’s Degree in Christian Theology and Doctrine from Talbot Seminary in Biola University, Moon plans to apply to Orange Luther to lead theology classes. As for his family, Moon is excited to visit his four children who are scattered across the world as well as possibly move to Colorado.
And even after his retirement, Moon hopes everyone in BOHS will continue to abide by the golden rule of altruism and “be men and women of integrity.”
“Moon really shows his passions for what he does here; he truly cares and puts 100 percent into whatever he does. I am very happy for him, and I hope he enjoys his retirement. But I’m sure that his legacy of what he has done here is going to continue,” Donna Prince, Principal Jerry Halpin’s secretary, said.
