'BEES' SPREAD DRUG-FREE MESSAGE

The "Bees" At The Rock Community Center Are Teaching The "Wannabees" To Be
Drug-Free.

The Tennessee National Guard kicked off its "Bee Like Me . . . Bee Drug
Free" drug abuse prevention curriculum Friday for children involved in the
Coalition for Kids' after-school programs at the Rock. The program asks
fifth-graders to be role models for first-graders and second-graders.

"Our goal for the kids is for them to grow up to be like something they
want to be and have other people want to be like them," said Scott Mason,
East Tennessee project coordinator for the Tennessee Army National Guard's
Counter-drug Division.

Mason trains Fairmont Elementary School fifth-grade "bees" for an hour each
Monday, using a student guide with lessons on drug abuse prevention, anger
management, conflict resolution, self-esteem and other behavioral issues.

"There are no right or wrong answers in what they think," Mason said. "They
collaborate and put their minds together, and that's how they come up with
some of their answers."

Once they graduate from the program, the "bees" will become peer mentors to
the "wannabees," first-graders and second-graders from Fairmont and North
Side elementary schools.

"They will get them to do their homework, they will do skits and just kind
of be a big brother or a big sister," Mason said. "They will teach the
children to make good decisions."

Fifth-grader Jaimee Hill, 11, was looking forward to being a "bee."

"You tell them not to drugs and how they affect your body," she said. "I've
just always wanted to be a teacher."

Coalition for Kids Programs Director Mike Forrester said he learned about
"Bee Like Me" last year during a "Yes to Kids" conference.

"I automatically fell in love with it, and I said, 'That's something we've
got to have in Johnson City. We've got to have it at the Rock,' " he said.

Forrester said the program was in practice in Nashville and further west,
and it was usually used in a school or a school system.

"So it's kind of unique that an after-school program is doing it,"
Forrester said. "So we're doing it as a pilot project with hopes that the
city will open its arms to the program, as well as Bristol, Kingsport,
Sullivan County, Washington County and all the surrounding areas."