HIGH TIMES IMAGINED FROM HEMPSTEAD SHIRT

ATLANTA - The town of Hempstead, N.Y., has a message for Gwinnett
County administrators: Before you target a student wearing a Hempstead
shirt, look at a map.

Terrell Jones, a student in Gwinnett County's Grayson High School, was
weeded out of a classroom by a school administrator because he wore a
shirt that read: "Hempstead, NY 516," a reference to the Long Island
town and its telephone area code.

According to Jones' family, which moved from Hempstead to the Atlanta
suburb, the school thought the shirt referred to marijuana. Jones
wasn't allowed to return to class until he persuaded school officials
to search the Internet for the town name.

The town's Web site says the area may have been named for
Hemel-Hempstead, England. Another theory cites the Dutch city of
Heemstede, because settlers had come years earlier from the
Netherlands.

In any case, "before they would jump to any conclusions, they should
be sure of what they're talking about," town spokeswoman Susie Trenkle
said of the Georgia officials.

Hempstead is the nation's largest township, with 759,000 residents
spread across 22 villages and more than 142 square miles, she said.

The student's father, James Jones, said he wants an apology for
Monday's incident. School district officials did not return a call for
comment.

Terrell Jones says he will keep wearing the shirt to school.