BUTLER TWP - Butler residents who like the sleek new city police cars have the Butler County Vocational-Technical School to thank.

Students from three programs worked on the cars, preparing them for active duty.

Police Chief Tim Fennel said he is pleased with the work the students did on the cars: "They did a fantastic job. We are extremely pleased with the job. We've gotten nothing but compliments on their work."

The solid black cars arrived at the vo-tech and were sent to the auto collision repair shop.

Dave Peters, shop teacher, said his students were responsible for painting portions of white on the cars. It took them four days to paint each car. A total of 20 students worked on the cars, he said.

Butler seniors Dan Ristity and Levi Spinneweber worked on the paint job.

"It wasn't the most challenging thing I've ever done, but it was the first time I painted just a section of a car," Ristity said.

Spinneweber said the job could have been harder.

"It's not as different as people might think," Spinneweber said. "It's harder when you're trying to match up paint than if you're just painting a section a new color."

Neither of the students let the fact that it was a police car they were painting influence their work.

"I wasn't really nervous," Ristity said. "It was just another vehicle to paint."

Once the painting was done, students from the graphic arts class designed and applied the police logos on the cars.

Butler juniors Ross Wells and Jonathon Passauer said working with reflective vinyl on cars was hard.

"I've never put vinyl on a car before," Wells said.

"It was a new experience for us, trying to get it lined up and even and making sure it didn't have any creases or bubbles in it," Passauer said.

John Austin, a Butler junior, designed the logo used on the new cars.

"They gave me a picture of an old car ... and the font they needed it to be ... and that's what I had to work with," Austin said.

It took him seven days, working two hours each day, to design the logo.

The work the students in auto collision and graphic arts did wouldn't have been possible without the help of a third group at the school - protective services.

Josh Smith, a Karns City senior in the protective services program, said his group raised the money needed to pay for the project.

"We got some money out of our student funding and figured we'd do what we could do to help," he said.

The reflective vinyl used on the cars cost $300 and the blade used on the vinyl cutter was $180.

The only item the city had to pay for was the paint, which was around $400 for all three cars.

Vo-tech director Joe Cunningham said the school was more than happy to help the city with the cars and hopes to provide more assistance in the future.

The offer was music to Fennel's ears.

"We'd certainly like to keep the cooperative effort going on," he said.