Crime & Safety
Olympian Brooke Bennett Receives Hillsborough Sheriff's Citizen's Award
Three-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Brooke Bennett paid tribute to Brandon and the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center after receiving a Citizen's Award from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office on Sept. 12.
Brooke Bennett, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in distance swimming, who trained early in her life at the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center, received on Sept. 12 from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office an award for community involvement.
"Oh, it's wonderful," said Bennett, in an interview after the Awards Recognition Ceremony for the third quarter of 2012. Thankful for her receipt of the Citizen's Award, , Bennett said what matters most is that "my accomplishments enable me to do something for others in the community."
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The recognition gathering is held quarterly at the jail assembly room in the Greater Brandon area of Tampa, at 520 North Falkenburg Road.
There, Bennett was congratulated formally and informally by Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee, who grew up in the Greater Brandon area and knew of Bennett's accomplishments as a community neighbor as well.
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That Bennett would be used to champion community causes is not something the 1998 Durant High School graduate thought about in her years of training to become a world-class swimmer.
"You really don't think that way when you're swimming and training for an Olympic goal," said Bennett, who works as a reporter for the Bright House Sports Newtork (Channel 47), "your home for high school sports."
Bennett was recognized by the sheriff's office for partnering with several local and national charity organizations that have reportedly raised more than $4.5 million, including the Navy Seal Foundation, Swim Across American and the Moffitt Cancer Center.
It was noted, too, in prepared remarks for the ceremony that Bennett mentors young athletes at the Pinellas chapter of Big Brotheres Big Sisters and that in June she was a keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office's Rising Star Academy.
As for Bennett, in the interview she paid homage to the community in which she grew up, and also to the Brandon Sports & Aquatic Center (BSAC), where she started training as a swimmer at age 9.
"It's definitely nice to always feel that hometown feeling," Bennett said about Brandon.
As for BSAC, "that is home for me, I started training there at 9-years-old," said Bennett, who attended Gorrie Elementary, Wilson and Turkey Creek junior high, and Durant high schools.
BSAC, she added, "gave me an opportunity to accomplish my goals."
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