Local police chief teaches snake safety, conservation

On most days, Keith Rinehardt leads officers of the Midland City Police Department as they enforce the laws of Alabama.

Over the past two days, those duties took him to the woods in the Mabson community to teach Dale County and Ozark city youth about snake safety and preservation. As the police chief of Midland City, Rinehardt said he’s still in the process of training the officers of the department how to safely respond to a reported snake sighting.

Ozark Mayor Billy Blackwell said more than 400 fifth graders attended the event Wednesday and Thursday. The day started for each student at the Jack Reynolds Pavilion off Dale County Road 20 and took them on a journey through the woods to four learning stations about nature and the environment.

Rinehardt had some of his dozen personal snakes on display, which included two copperheads, timber rattle snakes, an Eastern Diamondback rattle snake, a cottonmouth and several rat snakes. Rinehardt said he’s done educational and safety programs before about snakes, but it was his first time at the Mabson Community Education Forestry facility.

“I’ve been handling venomous snakes since I was 14, and now I’m 51,” Rinehardt said. “It’s getting them to understand we do need to work toward saving our environment. So many of them (snakes) now a days their numbers are dwindling.”

Rinehardt said he has worked to dispel the common myth and negative connotation snakes too often carry with them. He called snakes an important part of the food chain, saying how some rattle snakes eat up to 100 mice a year.

“I teach preservation through education and conservation,” Rinehardt said. “We fear things we don’t know about, and don’t understand.”

His snake handling training has come in handy while working as a police officer. Just last fall he responded to a 911 call in Midland City of a reported Eastern Diamondback rattle snake found in a resident’s garage.

Kyle Hunter, 11, a fifth grader at Mixon Elementary School, called the reptile exhibit his favorite Thursday.

“I like snakes and alligators. I think they’re cool,” Kyle said. “I know to keep a safe distance from snakes and alligators.”

Stephanie Evans, a fifth grade teacher at Mixon Elementary School in Ozark, said the class field trip gave her students an opportunity to totally immerse themselves in the environment. She said the snakes and alligators gave the students the rare opportunity to get a “hands on” experience, which she said was quite a contrast to a previous Montgomery Zoo field trip. All the students had the opportunity to touch a non-venomous snake and a 2-foot-long alligator.

“It has given us a chance to get out of our textbooks,” Evans said. “That was the first time I’d ever touched a snake.”