SUMMER CAMP DARES KIDS TO STAY OFF DRUGS

This Is The 11th Summer Of Salem Camp DARE, A Mixture Of Summer Fun And
Drug Education.

Audra Sowers didn't fear the poisonous Zambezi flies, rumored to be buzzing
about, even though they go straight for the neck. The summer camper wasn't
afraid of the great northwestern eel, even though they were reputed to live
in the creek she was paddling her canoe in last week.

Audra, a rising seventh-grader at Salem's Andrew Lewis Middle School,
wasn't even concerned that Charlie No Face might visit Camp DARE that night
to frighten her and her friends. In fact, Audra got a kick out of the
ruckus the night before, when midnight noises were attributed to Charlie.

"I think it's fun to watch everybody scream," Audra said.

The far-fetched legends of Craig Creek and her first canoeing trip probably
will stick with Audra. But she said she also will remember that camp taught
her if she smokes marijuana or crack cocaine, there is an 85 percent chance
she will get hooked.

This is the 11th summer of Salem Camp DARE, a mixture of traditional summer
fun such as ghost stories and horseback rides with the popular national
drug education curriculum. It's so popular that since the mid-1990s three
out of four of Andrew Lewis students have attended.

Students stay for a week, in groups of about 25. The eight weeks of camp
alternate between all-boy groups and all-girl groups. Parents pay no fees.

Campers are bused to the nearly 500-acre camp near Fincastle that Salem
leases from a church.

Much of the week looks like other summer camps - melting s'mores around the
campfire, staying up too late in a bunkhouse and nursing bug bites and
bruises. One key difference is that campers are surrounded by police
officers stripped of their hats and dark sunglasses. Camp leaders say being
able to splash around in a creek with a cop has its own rewards.

"I think the real benefit here is to see the officers are human, too," said
Lt. Stacey Clark during a creekside break on a canoe trip.

After the canoe float and a steak dinner, Drug Abuse Resistance Education
officer and camp leader Mike Teague explained that the camp is as much a
life lesson as it is a drug education curriculum.

"When you're interacting with the kids every day, they're going to learn
something from you," he said.

Starting to show fatigue from a day of canoeing and dancing, the girls
gathered around a television to watch "Nightmare on Drug Street." The
35-minute film has three vignettes of youngsters who succumbed to the
allure of drugs and paid for it with their lives.

"You are the prime target for these type of things to start," Teague told
the campers. "Right here at this age is where you're going to have to deal
with it."

The evening lessons aren't just on drugs. Chance Crawford, clerk of Salem
Circuit Court, talks to the campers about the court system and his
challenges dealing with paralysis. Other nights' lessons focus on fire
safety and emergency rescue.

DARE was founded in 1983 in Los Angeles by police and school officials.
That spawned a national nonprofit organization called DARE America, which
supplies materials and other support to individual school programs. The
organization's Web site says the program reaches 30 million children in the
world. It is taught in 32 foreign countries and is taught in 80 percent of
American school districts in all 50 states.

Roanoke also offers a DARE camp, four days in August at Smith Mountain Lake
for about 250 campers. Roanoke County discontinued its involvement with the
DARE program in 2000, but offers two sessions of a weeklong law and
violence education camp that attracts about 50 children.

The effectiveness of the DARE program has been a point of debate in recent
years, since some academic studies have contended that they don't curb drug
abuse.

Teague is familiar with the studies, but says the positive results he
witnesses are enough proof for him.

"Any program, not just the DARE program, is how much you put in it," he said.

He cited letters from former campers who said the camp squelched a growing
drug habit. He noted that many former campers return to be counselors.

"It sticks with you," said counselor Stephanie Thomas. "The city of Salem
does a great job - they raise you with this."

No firm figures were available, but Salem City Manager and DARE Camp
co-founder Forest Jones said the majority of the city's $110,000 youth
activities fund is devoted to the camp. That doesn't count the salaries of
officers, school administrators and city personnel who help out.

"We're trying to develop good citizens here, is what we're trying to do,"
he said.

Audra and her friends finished off the day by completing copper DARE
plaques and performing a line dance to a Michael Jackson's "The Way You
Make Me Feel." They ran to the showers laughing, having too much fun to
care that Charlie No Face was rumored to be nearby.