SCHOOL WILL HOLD FUNERAL FOR "METH VICTIM"

A virtual victim of meth abuse will be laid to rest on Wednesday at the
Walker County Alternative Education Center in Chickamauga, school officials
said.

Chris Sikes, principal at the school, said he hopes the dramatization will
keep students from using methamphetamine and other drugs or alcohol.

Sikes said most Walker County students probably have firsthand experience
with meth use, whether it is from friends or family manufacturing, selling
or using the drug.

"If you can scare them enough to keep them away from it, it's a definitely
a good thing," Sikes said. "That's what we're going for."

Cindy Hawkins, area director for the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, got
the idea for the "funeral" while attending a conference in Summerville,
Sikes said. An officer there has the means to present the funeral,
including a coffin, in a way that educates people about the dangers
associated with meth.

"Inside the coffin is an actual meth lab," Sikes said. "We are trying to
perform a mock funeral in the old Osburn Cemetery behind the school."

The school has permission to use the cemetery and Wilson Funeral Homes will
provide a funeral tent, Sikes said.

Vanita Hullender, Catoosa County coroner and founder of the Catoosa
Citizens Drug Task Force, is expected to speak to students about her
meetings with drug users, he said.

"(Hullender) will read a poem from a person who actually died from meth,"
Sikes said.

State Rep. Jay Neal of LaFayette, state Sen. Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga,
and Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson have also been invited to speak to
students.

The skit ties into the life skills class at the school, which includes drug
and alcohol awareness, taught by Erin Collins, Sikes said. The 45-minute
event is intended for the 60 students at the school and is not open to the
public.

Collins helped create the program. "We're dealing specifically with a major
problem right now in Walker County -- the production, the selling and the
use of meth," Collins said. "We're hitting the problem head-on."

He plans to flesh out the program created for the Alternative Education
Center so it could be used at other schools in the district.

"This is the beginning of something and we're kind of keeping our fingers
crossed that everything comes together," Collins said. "It's a trial run
but we have invited a lot of people."

Students enrolled in the AEC "have usually experienced significant
behavioral and/or attendance problems in school and traditional ways of
correcting those problems have not been successful," Sikes wrote on the
school's website at www.walkerschools.org/aec. "Our program offers a very
structured environment, free of most of the distractions found in a regular
school."