MUCH TO BE PROUD ABOUT

I'm a proud African American who has lived in Macon all of my 48 years.
Recently, I attended the annual DARE graduation at the Macon City
Auditorium. My daughter and several hundred DARE students from Macon's
private and public schools were honored for their several weeks of DARE
Training.

I was impressed that each student had made a commitment to be "drug free."
However, I was more impressed with the interaction among the students, not
only at the graduation ceremony but also at the skate party that was held
at a local skating rink after the graduation. As I watched the students
interact with each other, without regard to race, to school, neighborhood,
etc., I could envision a future city of Macon that is working in harmony to
make the entire community better.

I guess adults will have to hope our children will do a better job of
working together to make our community better than we have. I also watched
the interaction between the DARE police officers and the students. I could
see the sincere love and respect between the officers and the students.

So often, as a community we focus on the negative issues that divides our
community.

The DARE program gives our community several things to be proud of: our
children, our schools, our teachers, our parents and our Macon Police officers.

Frank Mack

Macon