DARE PROGRAM GRADUATES 270

Fifth- And Sixth-graders Complete Anti-drug Education

Drugs and violence can permanently derail anyone's future.

That was the message communicated to some 270 fifth- and sixth-graders who
graduated Friday from the Bristol Virginia Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program at Virginia High School.

Students who completed the 17-week course were taught about the dangers of
drugs and violence through a variety of life skills and lessons, said city
sheriff's Maj. David Maples.

The Sheriff's Office initiated the city's program in 1987.

"The curriculum combines drug and violence prevention," Maples said. "Each
week we covered a different area. We talk about self-esteem, ways to say no
and resist drugs, anger management and the influence of the media on
different issues."

Students from Bristol's four public elementary schools and pupils from
Sullins Academy and St. Anne's Catholic School spent the morning playing
games, listening to music, eating pizza and dancing before the diplomas
were given out.

"They make it fun," Chanisha Stewart, a fifth-grader at Washington-Lee
Elementary, said of the DARE program. "We learn what drugs and alcohol do
to you and not to do drugs because of the consequences."

Carrie Read, a Virginia High senior and a member of the school's Students
Against Drunk Driving club, said she had completed the program as an
elementary-schooler and felt the its influence had remained a positive in
her life.

"I think it is still just as much fun now as then," she said.

DARE was created in 1983 in Los Angeles.

More than 50,000 law enforcement officers nationwide are trained to teach
the program, and more than 26 million students will participate this year,
officials said.

Tracie Dingus, a fifth-grade teacher at Stonewall Jackson Elementary, said
the program went beyond a simplistic approach of telling students to just
say no.

"They learn other things than just saying no," Dingus said. "They give them
a lot more tools than that.

"Today, the students can come out and see the older kids have fun and see
that it is cool not to do drugs."