It’s the usual routine on a Thursday afternoon at the 980 South Mill Road intersection. Kids wearing unicorn helmets fly down the sidewalk on pink scooters. A dad pulls a lucky few in a wagon. Twin blonde girls cross the road and pay surrounding traffic no mind, their noses buried in a shared picture book.
These roughly 250 kids have a protector: crossing guard Debbie Carlin, who works the intersection near Old Mill Elementary School and Timpanogos Middle School every weekday morning and afternoon.
Carlin has lived in Heber City with her husband, Adriaan Hager, for 32 years. She became a crossing guard about four years ago, first just looking to volunteer, not realizing it was a paid position.
For Carlin, it was less about the money and more about getting her “kid fix” — her own child had just left for college. Although each student interacts with Carlin for only a minute or so each school day, the repeated, positive interactions have made her beloved among schoolchildren.
“She really likes to smile, and she’s like, ‘Have a good day,’” said fourth grader June Chambers. “She always lifts my spirit when I have a bad day.”
Carlin said each child feels almost like her own.
“There used to be a little kid on a little tricycle. He used to have this little light. And now he’s one of my older kids, Lars, and I talk to him every morning,” she said. “I watched him grow up.”
Although she’s not their mother, Carlin is willing to put her life on the line to protect the kids.
That became evident on the morning of April 8, when an unidentified motorist attempted to speed through the intersection as Carlin and a group of children prepared to cross the street. Carlin stepped in front of the vehicle, displayed her stop sign and yelled at the motorist to halt — which, thankfully, they did — and for the wide-eyed children to get back.
“We just let them sit there and be shamed,” Carlin recalled.
She insisted that the incident was commonplace for a school crossing guard. Nevertheless, a parent witnessed her good deed and posted about it on Facebook.
“I might have looked a little bit more dramatic because it was a huge, lifted truck and I’m a little person,” Carlin rationalized.
Her husband chimed in, “David versus Goliath.”
The post caught the attention of Carlin’s supervisor, Heber City Police Department Sgt. Zac Hendricksen. Much to her protest, he nominated her for the Mayor’s Award, which was bestowed upon her during the April 21 City Council meeting.
“Debbie loves being in the limelight,” Deputy Chief Branden Russell joked as an embarrassed Carlin stood beside him.
Carlin still insists that she didn’t deserve the award, that any crossing guard would’ve done the same. But her coworker and mentor, Brent North, who has been a crossing guard for 15 years, said he certainly wouldn’t have stepped in front of the vehicle.
“If it’s going to hurt the kids, I might,” he said. “It’s more danger to you if you jump out.”
In more extreme incidents, a crossing guard will whack their stop sign against a vehicle to get the driver’s attention.
Carlin’s former coworker, Elmer Pays, had dents all over his stop sign before he laid down his arms after 17 years in the trenches. Carlin’s stop sign only has one dent, from when she whacked a car driven by an inattentive driver a couple of years ago.
“(Pays) would get mad. I’m more like, kill people with kindness,” she said. Then, after a moment’s pause: “Well, not really. I get mad. We all get mad, so we yell at them. They can’t hear us. But I really think it’s more for us. It’s like yelling at the TV.”
Hager has become much more conscious of his driving habits since his wife became a crossing guard.
“It just boils my blood sometimes to hear some of the stories of people not paying attention,” he said.
Some drivers are not only inattentive but also impatient.
“I’ve counted how long it takes. It’s literally 12 seconds in between kids,” Carlin said. “What Brent always says: ‘You can’t fix stupid.’ They just have no common sense.”
Although being a crossing guard can be frustrating or dangerous at times, it’s far from a thankless profession.
“Everyone says ‘thank you’ all the time. They’re really well-behaved kids,” Carlin said.
The parents are grateful, too, often giving Carlin presents during holidays. Her favorite is a key chain of a tiny crossing guard with its own red and white sign.
While walking home with her third grader, Heber City mother Monica Lopez insisted that crossing guards deserve more recognition.
“I think crossing guards are special people, for sure. Not everybody would do their job,” she said. “They’re underpaid heroes.”