SPREADING THE WORD AGAINST ILLEGAL DRUGS

BEDFORD - It's a message that Scott Callahan never gets tired of delivering.

Neither does Joe Fender.

Callahan is county prosecutor. Fender is DARE officer for the Bedford
Police Department.

Their messages to students is simple: Don't mess around with drugs.

On Thursday, that message was delivered to Stalker students in the
school gym as part of a Red Ribbon Week ceremony.

"We don't just come into your classroom and say 'Don't do drugs,' we
give you reasons why you shouldn't take drugs," Fender told the students.

Callahan told them he's proud he's never used illegal drugs.

"I never sat in a seat in a gym at school and took a pledge not to
use drugs when I was your age, like you're doing today, but I made
the choice every day of my life to be drug free," Callahan said.

Earlier Callahan had emphasized to the students that illegal drug
usage could lead to spending time in jail, hurting oneself or others,
and death.

"If you know these are the consequences then why ever get involved
with drugs?" he asked them.

The poster winners received a T-shirt proclaiming "We are the future,
let's make it drug free." They were taking the message to heart.

In Allison Phillips' first-place poster, she presented a person
traveling down two distinctly different paths depending on the
choices they made.

"Which sidewalk would you walk on?" the fifth-grader printed on her poster.

She then gave outcomes for choices with drugs leading down a trail
culminating in an early death. The drug-free life sidewalk steps she
drew led to a happy life.

Brackon Rainey put tombstones on his poster "because most people die
from (drug use)," he said.

First-grader Garrett Rayhill drew a picture of a boy and a girl on
his poster with advice that they reach for the stars and not drugs.

Kristin Clephane showed outcomes of choices about drugs on her poster.

"They did drugs and they died and they didn't and they grew old," the
third-grader explained.

Vicky Simmons said Red Ribbon Week is kind of misleading at Stalker
because students do activities for the whole month and not just for one week.

Each student gets an activity book that has word finds, crosswords,
all kind of word games that all relate to being drug free, Simmons said.

"We have a banner that each person, children and staff, sign which
will be displayed with the banners of past years," she said.

Then, of course, there's the poster contest, judged by Fender and Callahan.

A role Callahan said he enjoys.

"This is the best part of my job, getting in the schools and talking
to the students," Callahan said after the ceremony. "Doing that, I
feel we're making a positive difference in their future."

A future they hope is drug free.