BUCHANAN KIDS PLEDGE TO BE DRUG FREE

Red Ribbon Week Inspires Poignant Words From Police Chief

BUCHANAN -- A little over a year ago, a 22-year-old man entered
Buchanan Police Chief Bill Marx's office, sat down across from him
and admitted it. He was hooked.

"For an addict to come into a police department and sit down and ask
for help," Marx said, "that took a lot."

Marx's poignant words hit close to home Friday morning for
10-year-old Jordan York, a Stark Elementary School fifth-grader who's
had his share of dealing with a rehabilitating cousin, he said.

"My cousin had problems with drugs a while back," Jordan said, "and
when Hurricane Katrina hit, he went to help out and try to redeem himself."

But Jordan and more than 170 other students during a Red Ribbon Rally
pledged not to follow in the drug-infested paths that have led to
sickness and death for far too many, police and administrators said.

"No one has ever scored a touchdown, no one has ever scored a basket,
no one has ever won a race because they used drugs," Bill Magley,
Buchanan Community Schools athletic director, told several students
clad in red.

Take, for instance, a young Indian brave who once trudged up a
mountain to find food and instead stumbled upon a snake coiled up in
the snow, Magley said. The snake asked the boy to take him off the
mountain so it wouldn't die, promising not to bite the boy. The
trusting brave therefore placed the snake in his backpack, descended
the mountain and removed the reptile from his sack when he reached the bottom.

That's when the creature bit him. And why?

"'You knew what I was before you picked me up,'" was the snake's
reply, Magley said.

In the same way, friends and peer groups can encourage you to try
marijuana, cigarettes or their parents' alcohol, Magley told the
attentive group of students ranging from kindergarten to fifth
grades. But "don't do it because drugs, like the snake, will bite you
in the end," Magley said.

Fifth-graders in the group were a main target for administrators and
Marx, as the higher-elementary age group will soon be confronted with
drugs in middle and high schools, Marx said.

When two girls in the audience asked Marx what to do if they had
relatives using drugs -- one child explaining how her mother used
drugs off and on -- the police officer who served in the Berrien
County Sheriff's Department for more than 26 years said he was taken
by surprise.

"That was a moment," Marx said. "And I tell them they need to keep
themselves away from it. Hide from it, stay in their bedroom, ask
them to stop. ... That was an unusual event in the rally."

The Buchanan Police Department and about 23 other departments
throughout Berrien County recently began offering low-cost drug test
kits for parents, already selling 18 in the past month, Marx said.

The $5 urine cup test can test for five different kinds of drugs,
while a $2 alcohol swab test is also available for parents in the
county, where drugs such as marijuana, heroine and crack cocaine are
most prevalent. Although the county has its bouts with
methamphetamine, Cass County struggles with more meth problems, Marx said.

"Now we're giving (parents) something physical that they can hold in
their hand and have some device they can use to help control their
family situation," Marx said.

The Buchanan school district is the only one in Berrien County that
still offers an elementary Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE,
program, added Stark Elementary Principal Karla Hurlbutt. The
program, led by Harvey Burnett, is funded through a $3,000 Safe and
Drug-Free Schools Grant that was worth about $6,000 when Hurlbutt
began working at the school four years ago, she said.

The grant, which is dispersed throughout the school district at
administrators' discretion, goes toward several other initiatives,
including peer mediation classes and a Freshman Growth Group for
girls at Buchanan High School, at-risk counselor Sonia Barlow said.

Friday's Red Ribbon Rally completed a week of school activities
promoting reading and featuring a wacky hair day and sidewalk-chalk
coloring day. Brandywine Community Schools' Merritt Elementary School
also had a door-decorating and judging contest in honor of Red Ribbon Week.

"I have a dream of being a teacher," 10-year-old Dominique Cocke said
following Stark's rally. "Instead of me doing drugs, maybe that dream
will come true and I'll be a teacher."