STUDENTS RALLY AGAINST DRUGS

BRAZORIA -- Students had a police escort and walked to the music of
the junior high marching band to proclaim their message during a Red
Ribbon Week parade at Barrow Elementary on Friday.

About 730 students from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade gathered at
the First Baptist Church of Brazoria parking lot Friday to jump on
their designated trailers and get the parade started.

"They're just learning about drugs," Susan Parker said about her
daughter, Taylar Laughlin, a kindergartner at Barrow and her
classmates. "I think they're excited to be with classmates and be in a
parade."

Students were escorted by two Brazoria Police Department cars and a
Columbia-Brazoria ISD Police Department D.A.R.E. Camaro, as well as a
few West Brazos Junior High School band members.

Along the streets, parents waited with cameras to snap pictures of
their children on floats.

Brazoria residents Mark and Nancy Guidry were waiting for their
sixth-grade daughter to pass them.

"She's got red all on -- painted her face, her hair red, red T-shirt,
practicing her song," Nancy Guidry said about the say-no-to-drugs
chants the sixth graders had to memorize.

The family had lived in Brazoria for only six months, and this was
their first time to experience the parade, Nancy Guidry said.

"I like this community," she said. "It's so small, but it's so
involved."

Red Ribbon Week is a nationwide program that educates students about
the effects of dangerous drugs.

It was started by the National Family Partnership in 1988 in honor of
former Drug Enforcement Administration investigator Enrique "Kiki"
Camarena, who was killed three years earlier in Mexico while working
as an undercover agent to investigate a major drug cartel believed to
have involved Mexican officials, according to the Texas Department of
State Health Services' Web site.

Fourth-grade teacher Cindy Weathers said when the district started the
parade in 1993, it was just a walk around the block.

"It wasn't meant for people to watch us more than it was to make that
statement," Weathers said.

Parents, teachers and volunteers have become more involved over the
years. Some were up at the parking lot to decorate the floats as early
as 6:45 a.m.

"We had more people that want to participate than having to search for
people to participate," said fourth-grade teacher Shannon Hamilton
about this year's parade.

Students thought the effort was well worth it.

"When I look back at how we did it in kindergarten, and how we do it
now, it gets better every year," said fifth-grader Chad Lewis, who has
participated in the parade since he first entered school.

"People know what to fix to make it better," sixth-grader Emily May
said