A 10-year-old boy broke into a car in Sumter decades ago.
He couldn't even reach the pedals, so he had his baby sister push them with her hands.
No one was hurt, thankfully, and the boy was soon put into the juvenile corrections system, where he met Genola Baynard.
Now retired as of Sept. 1, 2023, Baynard worked at Sumter County Department of Juvenile Justice since 1990, and from 1982 to 1987, she worked in a different area of the state juvenile justice system as a probation officer.
At Sumter County's DJJ, she was essentially the first face Sumter youth would see upon entering the system. And on top of that, she was the first face the parents of these minors would see upon their children entering the system.
She said it takes a certain personality to do the job well, and hers is somewhere between no-nonsense and sweet as can be.
"I'm stern, but I'm also fair," she said. "My case load at a particular time, they were all boys who were much taller than me. And they were charged with aggressive offenses, but I could not be scared. I wasn't gonna let size intimidate me, and I knew that I was the one that's in authority."
She's a short church-going lady with an inviting smile yet confident demeanor. And she does not like the spotlight, crediting her 40+ years of service to her coworkers.
"We need each other. With this type of work, you have to have a good team," she said.
The primary concern that parents of these kids have is that their kid is going to get taken away from them, so Baynard said she often prioritized easing that worry upon first meeting with the child and parents.
"They're thinking that we're gonna take the kids from them, but we are not a custody-taking agency. That is not us. We are about rehabilitation," she said.
And there are quite a few truths that Baynard found throughout her long career that some may not expect.
People are quick to blame the parents in these situations, she said, but more often than not, the parents of children in the juvenile justice systems are hardworking parents who love and care for their children to the best of their ability.
The common thread between her cases through the years, however, is that the parents have jobs that have demanding hours and little time off.
"You've got these parents that are working in these factories, and some of these factories have very low tolerance as far as absences," she said. "I've had a parent come in here crying saying, 'I can't take off my job all the time, but my child has gotten into trouble.' And that's the only income they have coming in to support that family."
So what's the solution?
Baynard said part of it is having more positive chaperoned out-of-school programs. Like the Boys and Girls Club, for example.
Nowadays, sometimes while shopping at the local Piggly Wiggly, Baynard will run into some of those kids she met while on the job, only now, many of them are adults with their own kids. She says many of them are success stories - formerly ornery kids, now watchful parents.
Near her desk in her office she had for her entire time at the local DJJ are some dinosaur magnets.
They're the age of her now-adult daughter.
Baynard's two worlds, DJJ and her family, were kept separate throughout her career. She never took work home with her, but what would remain consistent between her two worlds was her kindness.
Her home where she raised her daughter was not in Sumter, so Baynard never got to pick her daughter up from school while she was growing up.
Now freshly retired, Baynard is making up for lost time with her grandbaby.
"Fortunately, my parents were still alive when my daughter was in school, so they were able to pick her up, and I remember my mom telling me she would give my daughter a cold drink when she would get in the car because she was always so thirsty when she would get out of a long day of school, so now I always bring a cold drink with me when I pick up my grandchild," she said.
Baynard smiles when she talks about her family just about as much as she smiles when she talks about her coworkers.
"This isn't about me," she said, again. And again.
The team at Sumter County's DJJ is small but mighty. And they celebrate each other, Crystal Rufus-Robinson, community specialist, said. Not only did Baynard retire this year, but Marion Lyles, the team's long-time administrative assistant, did, too.
Both women were celebrated at their retirement party at the office back in August. Baynard said she'll treasure that memory, as well as a multitude of others from her career, forever.
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