DARE PROGRAM STILL ACTIVE IN REGION

MOUNT VERNON - The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program - known
for the slogan "Just Say No" -is a life lesson, according to officer
Ray Gilbert with the Mount Vernon Police Department.

"DARE is alive," he said. "DARE is very much alive in Mount Vernon."

Gilbert serves as the school resource officer and the DARE officer.
He said although some communities are no longer participating in the
national program, Mount Vernon considers it an important part of the
ongoing war against drugs.

"The City of Mount Vernon and especially the police department and
Chief (Chris) Mendenall think the DARE program is very important to
the city," he said. "I took it over two years ago from a guy that
retired. They have been doing it since the '90s."

Gilbert said DARE is a city or county program funded by the operating
agency not the state.

In Mount Vernon the program serves about 225 fifth grade students.

"It is a broad spectrum," Gilbert said. "Some children come from a
background where they know absolutely nothing about drugs, and some
children know a great deal about them. The good thing about our DARE
program is that it is tailored to cover all levels of knowledge with
the students."

Gilbert said the types of drugs most commonly seen in Southern
Illinois have changed but the approach to teaching students has not.

"When it comes to educating them on the drugs the same principles
apply," he said. "I don't doubt 10 years from now that there will be
a whole new kind of drug out there. We will still tell them it is
illegal and unhealthy."

The program in Mount Vernon is based on a preset curriculum provided
by DARE America.

"That is a workbook with individual lessons," Gilbert said.

The program lasts 10 weeks per group, and educating all of the
children in Gilbert's coverage area takes nearly the entire school year.

"I still see students that talk about going through the DARE program
and how much it meant to them," he said. "Students from the year
before will come up and give me a hug and say how much they miss it."

Jackson County also conducts a DARE program, and Officer Mark Wilson
said the county has been teaching kids the benefits of an anti-drug
life for around 12 years.

In Franklin County DARE served as the primary drug education program
for several years but has since been discontinued because of a lack
of personnel and funding.

"We ran out of bodies," said Franklin County Sheriff Bill Wilson. "We
had to raise about $2,500 a year. Benton started it in the '80s, and
we picked it up in the early '90s. We ran it up until a couple of years ago."

Wilson said the county had to raise the money to conduct the program.
He noted that between 11 and 12 schools participated at the time of
the program's end.

"It takes a lot of time," Wilson said. "By the time we did
everything, it was all one officer was doing."

Williamson County Sheriff Tom Cundiff said Herrin, Crab Orchard, and
Johnston City school districts have school resource officers who are
in the schools each day.

"We don't have DARE," he said. "We have three officers in the school
full time. We don't have a routine thing that we do every day. But
they are there every day."