YOUTHFUL VOICES MADE A DIFFERENCE

Sheriff Rick Davis has wisely decided to continue the popular DARE
Camp. Campers and counselers get credit for bringing the importance
of the anti-drug effort to the attention of the new sheriff.

During the fall campaign, Davis, a former sheriff's captain and the
Republican sheriff nominee, ruffled feathers when he indicated the
Drug Abuse Resistance Education summer camp might be cut.

Davis was looking for ways to streamline and reorganize projects such
as DARE. The program's main focus -- bringing law officers into the
schools to befriend youngsters, give them positive law enforcement
role models and teach about dangers of drugs -- was never in
question. But some residents worried the camp, during which kids
enjoy outdoor and team-building activities, might be on the chopping
block when annual fundraising didn't take place

On Dec. 19 Davis announced he would bring school resource officers to
the county's three middle schools, and that DARE camp would continue
this summer. The two issues are inextricably linked, the sheriff said.

"For too many years our DARE officers were spending much of their
time outside of the classroom performing logistical work and
fundraising to support our annual summer DARE Camp," Davis said.
"Their time, when not teaching DARE, can be better used serving the
students, teachers and schools of Henderson County as school resource
officers. We can accomplish this transition without asking for a
single extra tax dollar."

Davis asked Robert Danos, an administrator at Camp Mondamin, to help
him find a better way to finance DARE Camp than having officers do
the legwork. The plan to return the camps to Camp Pinewood under a
new structure will allow the program to serve 320 children this
summer, an increase of 45 over last summer, Danos said.

In a recent letter to the Times-News, Danos said that DARE students,
including campers and counselors at the camp, deserved credit for
making Davis aware of how much the camp means to youngsters. They
wrote e-mails and letters that were "passionate but polite," Danos
wrote, informing Davis that the camp was an important reward for
students who had gone through the DARE program.

"If the reaction had been a collective 'Who cares?' then I would have
spent my volunteer time elsewhere, and I am quite sure that Sheriff
Davis would have found other ways to spend critical time and money,"
Danos wrote. "Instead, we heard from many of you about why this
program mattered. This helped motivate us to complete the mission and
now the camps will have even more kids, the Middle Schools will get
school resource officers and your parents won't pay more in taxes for either."

Add this to the list: Youngsters get a positive civics lesson about
how their voices matter, hopefully prompting them to stay involved in
their community. Now that's a great outcome, and a solution where
everybody wins if we have ever heard one.