5 Lubbock-area first responders honored with Star of Texas award - Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

Gov. Greg Abbott presented the Star of Texas Award to five Lubbock-area first responders injured in the line of duty during a ceremony Friday in Austin.

The list includes Officer Levi Israel Ridley with the Texas Tech Police Department, Deputy Andrew Cavazos and Deputy Jorge Martinez with the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office, Sgt. Shawn Wilson with the Levelland Police Department, and Chief Rex T. Plant with the Memphis Police Department. Abbott was joined by state law enforcement leaders and other first responders at the event. Wilson was seriously injured after being shot.

For a region that leans on Texas Tech PD, the Lubbock County Sheriff's Office, and small-town departments like Levelland and Memphis to cover a lot of ground, this recognition puts a name and a face on the risk those officers and deputies carry every shift. Cavazos and Martinez patrol the same county roads and neighborhoods people here drive through daily, and Ridley works the Texas Tech campus that fills with tens of thousands of students each fall. The smaller departments outside Lubbock, where Wilson and Plant serve, often get less attention despite facing the same dangers.

The Star of Texas Award exists specifically for officers hurt or killed on duty, so every name on this list carries a story of a bad night that could have ended worse. Five officers from one corner of the South Plains getting honored together says something about how often that risk becomes reality out here.