“This is a calling. It’s about putting my life on the line to protect others,” he said. “It’s something I’m very passionate about, and I’m ready to get out there and start serving.”
When Sean Van Someren was in fourth grade, he was playing with a football in the driveway of his Baldwin home.
A police officer pulled over to the side of the road, got out of his squad car and asked to play catch with Van Someren.
“He started asking me about my day and how school was going,” Van Someren recalled. “Pretty much ever since that day, that moment, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
As he made his way through Baldwin-Woodville High School, Van Someren met up again with that officer who happened to be his high school football coach.
“He started mentoring me and talking about his days,” Van Someren said. “One of my main goals is to join a department and be involved in the community and be able to have an impact on the youth like that officer did with me when I was younger.”
Now, in his second year in the Criminal Justice program at Chippewa Valley Technical College, Van Someren, 19, is following his dream with the help of a scholarship that was born from the death of a sheriff’s deputy.
Van Someren is the first recipient of the $1,000 Badger State Sheriffs’ Association scholarship to honor fallen St. Croix County Deputy Kaitie Leising.
On May 6, 2023, when Van Someren was 17, Deputy Leising, 29, was shot and killed while investigating a single-vehicle crash involving a suspected drunk driver south of Glenwood City.
The shooting happened 10 minutes from Van Someren’s house. But that’s not the only loose connection. Van Someren was a senior in high school and already signed up for the Criminal Justice program at CVTC.
As his community was mourning, Van Someren was supposed to be getting excited about his education in law enforcement. The tragedy didn’t deter him from the profession. If anything, it spurred him on.
“This is a calling. It’s about putting my life on the line to protect others,” he said. “It’s something I’m very passionate about, and I’m ready to get out there and start serving.”
Leising’s commitment to her community and the criminal justice profession will continue to live on through this scholarship set up in her name.
“We honored her and how much she did for the community in her profession,” Van Someren said. “Everyone came together. Everyone paid their respects. She’s an inspiration.”
