LOW TURNOUT AT LOCK-IN DOESN'T HAMPER PROGRAM YOUTH ADVISER'S
ENTHUSIASM

CARLSBAD -- More than 500 Carlsbad students who graduated from the
D.A.R.E. program with their fifth-grade year were eligible to attend
the first Carlsbad D.A.R.E. lock-in at the recreation complex Saturday.

Only six showed up.

Youth Adviser Bianca Morales was upbeat Saturday about giving the
kids who did show a good time -- a little extra attention for their
graduation from the drug-prevention program. The six participants
were not all from the same elementary school, and were scrounging
through the large plastic bags filled with T-shirts (500), squirt
guns and other rec equipment planned for use during the lock-in.

Morales said not only did she advertise the event in the newspaper
and on the radio -- the community responded very generously to her
requests for assistance. As the youth adviser for D.A.R.E. in
Carlsbad, Morales said she works closely with the local police who
teach the drug awareness program. The Youth Advisory Board of
D.A.R.E. America appoints her.

Low attendance at this event hasn't discouraged Morales from planning
more new opportunities for Carlsbad students in the program next year.

At a conference Morales attended in Virginia, she learned as a
D.A.R.E. leader what kinds of events other communities put on to
reward students for the dedication to the program.

She took the ideas of a lock-in, a dance and a D.A.R.E. day and
combined them into one event at the rec center.

The participants Saturday afternoon didn't let their small numbers
diminish their enthusiasm for the fun planned through the night.

As they loaded squirt guns with water and prepared to take the water
fight outdoors, Andrea Gonzales, a former Joe Stanley Smith student,
said her favorite part of the year-long D.A.R.E. program was
"Learning about what drugs can do to your body."

Chris Mills, a student from Hillcrest, said he liked the D.A.R.E.
decision-making model the best.

The students in the D.A.R.E. program also get to become familiar with
local law enforcement.

Jovan Granger, a Craft Elementary student last year, said that
getting to know officer Carl Guillermo, her school's D.A.R.E.
officer, was one of the best parts of the program. She said the
things he taught her and her classmates would stay with her "forever."

In the coming school year, D.A.R.E. will continue to work with
fifth-graders at every elementary school in the district, but Morales
will also take a different version of the age-appropriate message to
the high school and the middle schools.

D.A.R.E. grads at the lock-in haled from Eddy, Joe Stanley Smith and
Craft and Hillcrest elementaries. As graduates of the Carlsbad
D.A.R.E. program, these students and their 490-plus fifth-grade
counterparts from the 2005-06 school year can attend a D.A.R.E.
daylong Christmas party in Albuquerque this December, Morales said.