Founder of Freshman Impact: Caught in the Moment
Rick McPherson, founder of C.O.R.E.
Rick McPherson, is married to his wife, Jackie; and they live in South Dakota. Their faith is the center of their lives and reaches out to those around them. They enjoy family time with their 3 grown children and 12 grandchildren. Rick, when he has extra time, loves hunting, fishing, and the outdoors.
Rick is a retired Pennington County Deputy from South Dakota with 31 plus years of law enforcement experience. During those years, he served in many different capacities in two states—Ohio and South Dakota. He served as a Certified State Mounted unit, Supervisor, Patrol officer, State Park Ranger, K -9 Unit, DARE Officer, 3 years in Special Crimes Unit, and a stint as a Special United States Marshall.

Through all his service, his heart’s inspiration and passion shows through in caring for the youth in our communities. Rick has taken his law enforcement experience to a new dimension taking a pro-active approach. Rick believes in educating our youth in a very unique, interactive training that involves many agencies, students, schools and local communities.
Because of his inspiration, he founded the Freshman Impact® program in 2006 in Wall SD, with one school and only 60 students attending. The program became a 501 c (3) non-profit organization in 2012 and has federally registered copyrights and trademarks. As of 2018, the Freshman Impact® program has given over 12,000 freshman students in over 60 school districts in 4 states the opportunity to see the real-life consequences of poor choices before it happens to them—and has saved countless teenage lives.
Today his inspiration, passion and dedication to helping our youth continues. It shines through in every Freshman Impact® program, its trained Local Coordinators and into every community that has the privilege of attending one of these programs.