Way back in 2004 I started working as a 911 dispatcher. I was 21, still working on my bachelors degree, and naive to the world of law enforcement. One of the officers I worked with often was a former Marine that everyone called by his last name, Cravens. Ron is just a little tough, and when I say a little I actually mean a lot, on the new people. Don’t tell him I said this, but over the years he has softened just a bit. Shh.. One thing about Ron that I saw immediately was how important family is to him. And he has a good one. It was a lot of fun over the years to not only work with Ron, but also to watch his family grow. I remember when they had their third little boy (Kellen), when Ron was promoted to Sergeant, when he went back to college (I proof read a lot of papers working night shift), when Lura Jean became a nurse practitioner, when the oldest left for the Army, when he gave them a grandson, when Cody decided to follow in his dads footsteps and become a Marine, and so funny moments of the boys hanging out in dispatch with us while their dad started his shift and their mom was ending hers. Not to mention countless gym sessions with all of them. So many great memories!

I had already moved to Kentucky when Cody left for bootcamp, so I was following along on his journey mostly through social media. Cody was just 4 years old when I met him and I have to say that I had a few tears of pride when he left and when he graduated. I was so excited when Lura Jean got a hold of me to do some photos of the two oldest boys, ahem…I should say men, in their uniforms. They were both going to be home at the same time on leave. I told her I would love to and I have to say that some of these pics turned out even better then I’d hoped….I could be a little biased. 🙂

I can’t talk about this family and not mention Sophie. She is a sweetheart and actually in photo program in college. 😀 They are adorable!!

When Kellen was about 8 or so years old he was in dispatch with me and we had the TV on Shark Week. The episode that was on was about shark attacks. Well, the Cravens crew travel quite a bit and on some pretty cool trips. I wasn’t thinking much about it and then it dawned on me that maybe the child shouldn’t be watching people being eaten by sharks, so I asked him, “Kellen are you allowed to watch this?” He never looked away from the TV and said, “yeah….just don’t tell my mom.” We watched cartoons after that. 😀

Please let me know if you’d like to set up a session of your own and I’d also like to mention that I offer 10% off to Military Veterans, Police, Fire, EMS, and Dispatch. Their efforts and sacrifices are much appreciated!!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Hanna 🙂

johnsonbranchphoto@yahoo.com

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