STUDENTS HIT STREETS WITH MESSAGE AGAINST DRUGS

It was hard to miss the bright red, block-long wriggling ribbon of children
marching through west Greenville on Tuesday. It was even harder to miss
their message.

About 550 cheering Sadie Saulter Elementary School students, teachers,
parents and volunteers shouted to anyone who would listen that they were
drug free and urged neighborhood residents to follow suit.

The march capped off a week of drug education efforts by school
administrators that were part of the national Red Ribbon Week - designed to
stop drug use before it starts.

"People just need to stop doing drugs," said fifth-grader April Moore, 10.
"People are dying."

They have died on the very streets that the children followed Tuesday,
giving the students' trek added significance.

The marchers' school sits at the center of some of the heaviest
drug-trafficking areas of the city. Their route carried them within one
block of the site where Demetrius Ebron was murdered in 1999, a crime
investigators believe was drug related.

Decked from head to toe in red clothes to match the ribbons on their chests,
marchers carried banners, noisemakers and pom-poms around Roosevelt and
Myrtle avenues and Cotanche, Fleming and Pamlico streets. A police escort
capped the front and rear of the parade, and other officers blocked off
surrounding streets.

"Nice and loud, let the whole neighborhood hear you," yelled one teacher as
the students wound past a mix of tidy yards and open businesses, derelict
houses and boarded-up shops.

Some in the neighborhood were listening. A few turned curious glances toward
the parade from front yards and passing cars and bicycles.

"I think it's real important for kids to send a message out to this
neighborhood," said onlooker Gwen Moore, a west Greenville resident who was
also cheering on grandson Montevius Staton.

Marcher and Pitt County School Board president Michael Dixon agreed.

"I hope this will show people that we invest in our community and our
children," Dixon said. "Not everyone in this neighborhood is on drugs. Our
children are doing well."

The National Family Partnership organized the first Red Ribbon Campaign in
1988 to honor Enrique "Kiki" Camarena, a Drug Enforcement Agent killed in
1985. Parents outraged by Camarena's death and the impact of drug use on
children began wearing the ribbons.

Now Red Ribbon Week - which falls the last week of October - focuses on drug
prevention. Other events at the school during the past week have included
drug prevention skits and visits from East Carolina University football
player Pernell Griffin, karate instructor Byung Lee and a Drug Abuse
Resistance Education (D.A.R.E) police officer.

"Early intervention is key," Sadie Saulter counselor and march organizer Kim
Mihoch said. "I think the march is an excellent way to send the message to
the community. This school is at the center of what's going on around here."

For onlooker Stanley Price the march was a good sign for what he called an
often-troubled neighborhood.

"The way things are now, it's hard to keep kids on the straight and narrow,"
said Price, waving to his girlfriend's daughters, Alexis and Jasmine Bryant,
as they made their way down the street. "This gives them a view that there's
more to life than what may be going on around them here."

Fifth-grader Charity Grice, 10, said she is on the right path and added a
simple plea for others to follow suit.

"People need to be drug free in the world," she said