'LARRY V. LOCKNEY' SHOWS BOTH VIEWS OF SCHOOL DRUG-TESTING SUIT

Documentary Captures Town Debate

The media frenzy that hit Lockney, Texas, in early 2000 after one parent
protested the school board's mandatory drug-testing program for grades
seven to 12 has died down.

Citing violation of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, U.S. District
Judge Sam Cummings has since ruled in favor of Larry Tannahill, who, with
the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged the policy in court.

But at Friday's world premiere of Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck's
documentary Larry v. Lockney at the Dallas Video Festival, it was obvious
the lines that prompted the suit are still drawn.

Mr. Tannahill, citing trust in his son, pressed the case and lost his job
at a local ranch and supply company. He turned town pariah, but the spare
West Texan, a graduate of the high school he sued, says he'd do it again.

"I knew they were trying to do the right thing," he said, "but they went
too far."

In a panel after the screening at the Dallas Theater Center, Lisa Mosley, a
popular art teacher at the school who favored the drug tests, called the
year the policy was in place "the best of my teaching career."

During the drug-test era, school board member John Quebe said, "Kids quit
using drugs because they knew that they would suffer the consequences."

The aim wasn't punitive, he insists, but to identify students who were
using drugs and try to get them help and into counseling.

When the filmmakers first landed in Lockney, Mr. Birnbaum says, they were
as welcome as boll weevils in that cotton-raising country.

"But the secret of documentary-making," he says, "is to show up and keep
showing up." They did.

Eventually, he says, Lockney folks looked around at a sporting event "and
wondered where the PBS guys were."

But if Mr. Tannahill and the Lockney school board and community don't see
eye to eye on the once-required drug test, now largely voluntary, they
agree on one thing.

It's that Larry v. Lockney, produced with KERA - on which it will air at a
still-undecided future date - delivers a fair, even-handed picture of the
town, its residents and the issues involved.

"I never asked Jim and Mark where they stand on this film," Mr. Quebe says.
"I've watched the film and I still don't know."