Thursday, February 15, 2007

Belvoir Elementary DARE graduates take a stand

Graduating fifth-grade students Devin Jackson, Emily Murphy, Diego Mendez and Tienna Postell open the DARE presentation with a message for students to stay away from drugs.  (Photos by Marny Malin)

More than 130 Fort Belvoir Elementary School fifth-graders graduated from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program during a ceremony Friday.

“I think it’s just very positive for them to see role models tell them how important it is not to do drugs,” said Maj. Christopher Butler, Fort Belvoir’s director of emergency services.

The DARE program was created in 1983 as a joint venture between the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District to prevent drug abuse in children. Since then, the program, which teaches kindergartners through high school seniors that popularity, can be found in positive behavior, that belonging to something need not require them to abandon their values and that self-confidence and self-worth come form asserting themselves and resisting destructive behaviors, has spread throughout the country.

“It is very important to the school,” said FBES Assistant Principal Cynthia Jamison. “Officers Sgt. Shianne Lewis and Sgt. Joshua Knotts were here, they were part of the community. They were role models.”

Wearing red shirts with the DARE logo on the front, the DARE graduates heard both Installation Commander Col. Brian W. Lauritzen and CWO4 Rohn D. Legore, a pilot from the District of Columbia Army National Guard’s 1/224th Security and Support Detachment, stress the importance of a drug-free lifestyle.

Following those remarks, each student was individually called onto the stage in the school’s cafeteria to receive his diploma. Lewis then explained that each student was required to write an essay about what the program meant to them in order to become a DARE graduate. Heather Shepherd’s essay was selected the overall winner in the Take a Stand competition.

“I think it’s important to be drug free to maintain good health,” she wrote. “I’d like to stay drug free to get good grades. I want to be able to go to a really good college, so I can live my dream of being a world-renowned chef.”

And while Shepherd learned about the consequences of doing drugs and how to say no as a result of the DARE program, she also learned valuable lessons in how to respect herself as a result of the program.

“What I will remember always is that I am in charge of me and I should respect myself and make positive choices,” she said.

Fort Belvoir’s Army Air Force Exchange Service awarded Shepherd a mountain bike for her essay.

“I’m going to get it tonight,” she said with a broad smile.