ANTI-DRUG RALLY

28,000 Students Will Participate In Porter County Alone

The message for a rally opening Red Ribbon Week, Porter County's
anti-drug school program, wasn't lost on Cynthia Harris. The
fourth-grader from Aylesworth Elementary School, who came to the
rally with classmates from her Portage school, already is against
drug use. A relative recently died of an overdose.

"That showed me a lot about drugs," Cynthia said. "That showed me
that I would never use drugs in my life."

The students were releasing red balloons and snacking on a cookies
decorated with red icing, outside the Porter County Government Center.

An estimated 28,000 Porter County students will participate in
activities for Red Ribbon Week, said Jackie Sterling, chairwoman of
the Red Ribbon campaign committee.

County schools started taking part in the program in 1992; Sterling
has been chairwoman ever since.

"Porter County is not unique. The epidemic is throughout the country,
and life is precious. We want to save as many of these lives as we
can," Sterling said.

As part of the rally, Tamara Barnes, an emergency room nurse for the
Porter hospital campuses in Valparaiso and Portage, shared stories
with the students about the people she's seen coming into the
emergency room suffering from drug and alcohol abuse.

That included a 14-year-old boy who needed a breathing tube after
binge drinking.

But the children's favorite part of the program was Benny, the
drug-sniffing German shepherd police dog.

Chris Kobitz, a corporal on the Portage Police Department and a
member of the Porter County Drug Task Force, had Benny find a small
container of crack cocaine. He rewarded the dog with the chance to
play with a rolled-up towel, the dog's favorite toy.

The demonstration left an impression on the Aylesworth students.

"I liked him because he had the dog and he seemed like a really nice
policeman," Carley Lowe said.

Classmate Enrique Caraballo said he liked Kobitz, too, but Barnes'
stories from the emergency room stuck with him as well.

"I think it was actually kind of scary," he said. "I thought that was
just really scary that alcohol would do that much to you."