CAPE GIRARDEANS RESPOND TO DYING GIRL'S WISH FOR CHRISTMAS CARDS

Children at Alma Schrader School don't know much about a 4-year-old girl in Tennessee, except that she doesn't have long to live and all she wants for Christmas is Christmas cards.

"It has been neat to see these kids making cards for someone they don't even know," said Kim Newman, a sixth-grade teacher at Alma Schrader.

The school is one of a few groups in the area that has responded to Paige Lane's modest request. Paige, who lives in Cookeville, Tenn., is dying of Wilms tumor cancer.

She will probably die within the next couple of weeks, said Mary Jo Denton, a reporter who has written about Paige for the Herald-Citizen newspaper in Cookesville.

"Back in September when we first met her, she was still pretty lively," Denton said. "Now she isn't."

The school had found out about Paige from children's parents who work at St. Francis Medical Center, Newman said.

A fax had been sent to St. Francis' pediatric department from the Cookeville Regional Medical Center. Angela Alexander, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee hospital, was not able to say who sent the fax, but information about Paige has spread nationally in random media reports.

The result has been enough Christmas cards to force Paige's parents to start storing them at the church the family attends, Denton said.

But Connie Laurentius, who works in the St. Francis administrative office, didn't think that was enough. The hospital does not see such requests very often, she said, so Laurentius sent a memo throughout the hospital asking colleagues to respond to the girl's Christmas card wish.

One memo made its way to Newman at Alma Schrader. She made copies and put them into teachers' mailboxes, she said.

Now the whole school is creating cards for Paige.

"It's important for the children to think about others at the holidays," Newman said. "For many of them, it's hard to believe in a 4 year old with cancer. They thought that only old people could get cancer."

On Friday, Newman's class was busy finishing cards for Paige before lunch. Several were cutting out and coloring pictures of the cartoon cat Garfield and pasting them onto colored construction paper.

Twelve-year-old Tara Raddle drew a picture on the front of her card with crayons. It showed a smiling brown-haired girl with her arms stretched out toward three Santa-Claus-sized sacks marked U.S. Post Office.

"I don't know what she looks like, so I just imagined," Tara said.

A large red card made by Sarah Whitener, 13, has hearts that pop out and is covered with encouraging messages. Sarah wrote her phone number on the card, saying that she'd be home on Christmas Eve if Paige wanted to call her. Sarah wrote that she is praying for her.

"It must be awfully lonely spending Christmas at the hospital," she said.

At this point Paige is no longer in the hospital, Denton said. She had been taken to the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., as a last resort at the end of November. Doctors there gave her about a month to live, Denton said.

Jana Jateff of Cape Girardeau heard about Paige from a friend in the Jackson Optimist Club. Since then, Jateff has organized members of the Excesilor Optimist Club in Cape Girardeau and her Bible study at LaCroix United Methodist Church to make cards.

Jateff is trying to tell as many people as she can.

"A lot of kids that age want a lot of things for themselves at Christmas," she said. "But I don't think many put Christmas cards on their list."

WHERE TO SEND CARDS

Christmas cards may be sent to

Paige Lane at:

4538 South Creek Rd.,

Cookeville, Tenn. 38506