Aaron Smith (#29) at left, leads the Whiteland Warriors football team onto the field in 2007. Smith, an Indiana State Police Trooper, was killed during a police pursuit in Hendricks County on June 28.
Photo provided by Clark-Pleasant Schools
Whiteland’s former athletic director remembers when he first met Indiana State Trooper Aaron Smith more than a decade ago.
Butch Zike, now retired and a member of the Clark-Pleasant School Board, first met Smith when he was a freshman at Whiteland Community High School and has many memories of him since then. Smith, 33, of Franklin, died last week after police say a Missouri man intentionally veered into the lane where he was deploying stop sticks to strike him during a police pursuit on Ronald Reagan Parkway in Hendricks County.
Zike first met Smith in 2004, when he was a freshman. At the time, WCHS had an advisement program where kids were assigned to an adult so that everyone had a staff member they could talk to. Smith was Zike’s advisee, he said. Because Smith played football and wrestled, he also had interactions with Zike thought his role as athletic director.
“He was one of the first ones when the football team would run onto the field. He was one of the captains,” Zike said.
Smith also worked in Zike’s office for a couple of years. Whenever he would have study hall or a similar time period open, he would be one of Zike’s office helpers, Zike said.
Zike described Smith as a servant leader. Servant leadership is a leadership style based on the idea that leaders prioritize serving the greater good.
“He would do anything for you. He was mature beyond his age,” Zike said. “He was a leader on any athletic team, or even any team he was on academically. He was just so much more mature than most kids at that age.”
One of Zike’s favorite memories of Smith is from a year or so ago. Zike had been scheduled to coach a little league game over by the Old Break-o-Day Elementary School and was walking over to the field when he saw a state trooper.
It was Smith.
“He stops, and we talked for about an hour and you know, it was there, and just caught up to everything that he was doing.”
Zike also remembers the times Smith would talk to him about getting his pilot’s license while in high school. Smith held a private pilot’s license and studied aviation management, graduating from Indiana State University in 2014.
Other times Zike would see Smith coaching Bantam League Football, or refereeing games.
“He was really a good role model for kids,” Zike said.
Zike was devastated to learn of Smith’s death. He was laying in bed watching TV when he saw Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter announced Smith’s death.
“When I told my wife right at that point in time, I said, I hope that’s not the Aaron Smith (I know),” Zike said. “I was devastated. He had he was he has so much to offer and for him to be gone. You know, that’s not good for society, we need people like you.”
Zikes hopes something will be done to honor Smith’s legacy at Clark-Pleasant schools, but he is unsure of what that will look like, he said.
Zike will always remember Smith as a good person. When the tornado hit Whiteland earlier this year, he was helping to clean up, he said.
“He’s just a really good person who cared more about other people than himself,” Zike said. “We need more, we need more Aaron Smiths in the world.”
