For "Dress as Your Favorite Person Day" at school, this 5-year-old chose his school's security officer

When the students at Bobby G. Lester Elementary School in Jacksonville, Arkansas, were asked to dress as their favorite person for a day, 5-year-old Easton Blocker had just one person in mind: His school's security officer, Jeffery Cross.

The kindergartener calls Cross his hero and best friend. So, it was a no brainer for him to wear a yellow "security" shirt and honor Cross on "Dress as Your Favorite Person Day."

"From day one, he has always had a fascination with Officer Cross," Easton's mom, Lauryn, told CBS affiliate KTHV. She helped her son get his costume ready for the special day at school. "That shirt is probably going to stick with him forever. It means a lot to him," she said.

The morning of "Dress as Your Favorite Person Day," Easton woke up before his alarm went off, his mom said. He was excited to show up to school as Cross. When he arrived at school, teachers took a photo of Easton and Cross side-by-side and posted it on Facebook – and the pair got a lot of attention.

Seeing Easton dress like him meant a lot to Cross. "It makes me appreciate my job more," he told KTHV.

This is the first year armed officers are in Jacksonville North Pulaski School District and it is the first district in the state to have one in every school, according to KTHV. The kids had a lot of questions for their new officer at the beginning of the school year. 

"They had questions about why I was armed and I was just telling them I'm armed to protect them from someone bad who would come and hurt them," Cross said. That stuck with Easton.

"He tells me every day, 'Officer Cross keeps us safe from the bad guys, mommy,'" Lauryn said. "It's reassuring." 

When asked why he wanted to dress like Cross, Easton had a simple answer: "He keeps me safe every day."