FOURTH-GRADERS WILL MARK ANOTHER SMOKELESS YEAR

Cape Girardeau fourth-graders are celebrating another smokeless year on their way toward the year 2000.

A graduation ceremony is planned May 5 at the Student Recreation Center on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

"This is a celebration of their pledge to live a healthy lifestyle." said Judy Stricker of St. Francis Medical Center.

Today, the committee planning for the Smoke-Free Class of 2000 will plant a tree at St. Francis Medical Center. "Every year there will be a tree planted to commemorate another smoke-free year," she said.

The Smoke-Free Class of 2000 is one effort to curb smoking, Stricker said.

"A few years ago C. Everett Koop, who was then surgeon general, set a goal for the United States to be smoke free by the year 2000," Stricker said.

"The Smoking Coalition, lung, heart and cancer societies nationwide picked up that goal and decided to focus on the class graduating in the year 2000."

Each year this class makes a pledge to remain smoke-free.

"As we do some work with these students we hope to reach the teachers also. We hope they are already emphasizing smoke-free lives and will continue after this class goes through."

In Cape Girardeau, Vision 2000, St. Francis and the SEMO Cancer Coalition are helping support the smoke-free class.

The graduation ceremony is being held at the Student Recreation Center at 12:30 p.m.

"Having this on a school day means every fourth-grader in Cape Girardeau can participate," Stricker said. "We will have 400-plus students."

Students from each school will parade into the arena carrying a sign for their school.

"It will be like an Olympic march around the track."

As students are filing in, gymnasts, Sundancers and other athletes from the university will perform.

"It will be like a three-ring circus," Stricker said.

Tony Coleman, a St. Louis County police officer, will be master of ceremonies for the program.

The university cheerleaders will each work with each of the schools to learn a cheer. Students will perform their cheer for the other fourth-graders.

All the students will receive a neon cap from St. Francis Medical Center. Last year all the students were given a bright yellow T-shirt.

In connection with this graduation program, fourth-grade students throughout the city wrote a paragraph on why champions are smoke free.

Stricker said two students from each class will be recognized as prize winners in this writing contest.

"Some of them talk about self-esteem and some talk about their heroes," she said.

"We have got to get to the kids," Stricker said. "Ninety percent of people who smoke started before age 19. We have got to convince them not to start because it's too hard to stop."

She said each year 390,000 people died because of smoking. "It's the most preventable cause of death."