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Suicide prevention mission’s former program manager now pushing the effort at the local level.

After he retired from being 91Ӱ���ƽ��’s program manager in July 2025, Tony Cross found himself at a crossroads. A top-level motivator and energy personified, Cross was bored.

So he became involved first in American Legion Post 182 in New Palestine, Ind. And then he became involved in the community. And now he’s combining both, while bringing the Legion’s veteran suicide prevention mission to the local level.

“One of the things I really wanted to do when I left the Legion … for me, the Be the One mission still existed,” Cross said. “After about a 60-day hiatus after leaving the Legion, I went back to my post … and I asked, ‘How many of you right now struggle (with mental health)?’ And I said, ‘Well, I do too.’ When I sat at home after my first month of being retired, I was like, ‘What am I going to do?’ I couldn’t just sit at home.”

After coming to that conclusion, Cross has made it his mission to invigorate Post 182 and raise the post’s profile within southern Hancock County. He’s used his connections developed by coaching and substitute teaching in New Palestine Community Schools, and as serving as president of the Southern Hancock Veterans Memorial Foundation, to help those efforts.

And he’s making Be the One a priority in both the post and community. That has included providing Be the One training within the post, as well as the formation of a Be the One Committee. “Believe it or not, most of the post comes to the committee meeting. And do you know why they come? Because we sit and talk,” Cross said. “We talk about the things we’re going to do here in the future. What we’re going to do this summer. We’re going to do cornhole. We’re going to have a steak night. We’re going to be at every event in New Palestine wearing our Be the One shirts. We’ve got a lot of stuff going on.”

Cross also implemented a new program at the post in which over the course of 60 days a group of Post 182 American Legion Family members are going to go door to door to visit other members and present them with a coin and thank them for their membership. And he is going to start organizing fireside chats at the post.

“We just open up our doors. We feed a little food,” he said. “And people just come in and talk about anything.”

Cross said Be the One resonates with so many people because it allows them to realize they are not alone. “After traveling around the country and seeing some of these posts that really work … it became clear to me that if we’re going to do this Be the One mission, that really is something that can drive the whole process,” he said. “Because all of us struggle with that. We struggle with that isolation. We struggle with depression. We struggle with anxiety.

“With the Be the One mission, my whole plan is to get New Palestine to become a Be the One community.”

Doing so has involved reaching out to the New Palestine Chamber of Commerce. Cross recently attended his first chamber meeting, where the subject of mental health came up – specifically, what employers can look for to determine if an employee is struggling. Cross was given the opportunity to speak and shared the importance of empathy and treating those employees with respect. As a result, Cross is now on the Chamber’s November schedule to discuss Be the One being a part of the community.

He’s also leveraged his work as a substitute teacher, and the New Palestine Junior High cross country and girls track coach, to develop relationships within New Palestine Community Schools.

“The first thing you have to do is you’ve got to embed yourself. By being at the school and substitute teaching and coaching, I’ve gotten to know a lot of people,” Cross said. “And I talked to my post and said, ‘We need to start putting some money into these schools.’ So we just donated $10,000 for a new high jump pit at the junior high. And we got that covered in the media. In order to change perceptions … you have to do that. We’re more than just what you think you see. I want people to want to join.”

Cross also been asked to speak about suicide prevention to the New Palestine Community Schools board. “I’m trying to get the Legion to be at the forefront in New Palestine,” he said. “It doesn’t take people long to get excited. We recruited five new people (at the post’s Memorial Day ceremony). It’s because we go up to them and talk to them and thank them for their service.”

All of this has led to a transformation for Post 182 – and another audience to learn about Be the One.

“We have really started on a whole new mission of communicating with the community,” Cross said. ““We’re starting to become a presence. We have changed everything we’re doing. And our No. 1 mission is mental health.

“All the other stuff we do is great, but when you stay focused on the Be the One mission, that’s what I always felt would drive the Legion’s future.”