PRAYER ISSUE AT CENTRAL'S GRADUATION

When the seniors at Cape Central High School graduate today, a majority of them have said they want to stand as a class and recite the Lord's Prayer together.

The school administration has been advised by the district's legal counsel to discourage students from doing so.

The debate centers around a U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning prayer at school graduation ceremonies. Some schools have interpreted the ruling to mean that prayers could be led by students. The Cape Central administration, on advice of the school's legal counsel, has said prayers would not be allowed.

More than 70 percent of the school's graduating class turned out for an optional baccalaureate service sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Ministerial Alliance at the Holiday Inn May 23.

Mendi Ferguson Crowell heads a committee of students who have mounted a petition drive hoping to change the administration's position.

"Other schools have had student-led benedictions and invocations at their graduation ceremonies," said Crowell said. "Perryville, Poplar Bluff and Chaffee had student-led prayers; Lutesville had a preacher come in and lead the prayers."

Crowell's group has been butting heads with the school administration over the issue for about a week. They submitted a petition, signed by about 175 of the 260 graduating seniors, expressing their wish to have a student-led prayer during the ceremony.

"They really gave us the run-around," Crowell said. "They kept telling us we needed this, or we needed that; nothing was ever right."

Cape Central principal Dan Milligan said that is not the case.

"Maybe they just don't understand the school's position in this matter," Milligan said.

"We asked our legal counsel about the prayers, even the student-led prayers," Milligan said. "He advised against it. Why should the school consult with an attorney and pay him for his services if we are not going to follow his advice?"

After the petition failed to sway the administration, the group sent letters to all the seniors, arranging a time and manner in which all students who so desired would rise and recite the Lord's Prayer.

"(Milligan) called today and was very angry after he had heard about the letter," Crowell said.

"But it would be optional for everyone," she continued. "We had people who didn't want to sign the petition but said that they wouldn't mind if others decided to pray at the ceremony. We aren't forcing this on anyone."

The student group believes that prayer is a natural part of the graduation ceremony. "We feel that prayer had always been a part of everything we have done to get here," said Crowell, whose father is a minister. "It is what most of us have grown up with."

She hopes her classmates are not intimidated by the directives of the administration and go through with the recitation of the prayer during the ceremony.

"I don't know how they're going to react," Crowell said. "It's been an uphill struggle all the way trying to get this done."

Will the students submit to the school's advisory, or will they rise and pray?