STUDENTS CONTACT SENATOR VIA INTERNET

JACKSON -- With hopes of encouraging youth participation in government, Senator John Ashcroft's Internet whiz-kid visited 7th- and 8th-grade students at Immaculate Conception School.

Stephen Smith, a Washington University graduate who has worked a year for Ashcroft, was in Jackson Friday to explain the senator's E-mail system. Smith and others from the Ashcroft's office have taught the same lesson at various Missouri schools.

Thanks to the Internet, people don't have to rely on slow, hand-delivered mail when communicating with their congressmen.

Ashcroft received 3,000 E-mail messages on the World Wide Web in January, and Smith expects that number to grow as more young people get Internet service. It's a phenomenon that has left some in the dust on the information superhighway.

"We had people from 50 offices in the House and Senate come through and look at what we're doing," Smith said. "We field lots of calls from people who want the senator's E-mail address."

C-SPAN, a cable channel for government watchers, has sent reporters to Ashcroft's office twice. The first did a story on the senator's use of the Internet, and the second did one on how he handles so many E-mails and handwritten letters.

Students at Immaculate Conception had several questions for Smith, who set up a projector so everyone could see Alicia Seabaugh, 14, send Ashcroft an E-mail. Their teachers had questions, too, particularly about the new Telecom legislation.

Part of the telecommunications overhaul bill had to do with on-line pornography. At this time, young people can access nude pictures and pornographic literature on the Internet, but Smith said parents can prevent it from getting into their homes.

"When I was young, my parents didn't like me watching cops and robbers shows, so they took the television's power cord when they left the house," he said. "Parents today can do the same thing with computers."

Seabaugh, who sent Ashcroft the E-mail, said she had a home computer but didn't have Internet service yet. Zach Friedrich, 13, and Blane Milde, 14, said they used computers at Immaculate Conception every time they had the chance.

"I stay after school and play games or use the computerized encyclopedia for reports," Friedrich said. "Most everybody here knows how to use the computer."

He said he would be interested in learning to use the Internet if given the opportunity. Milde agreed.

"You can talk to people, see what they're doing, listen to the kind of music they like," Milde said.

But would he E-mail a senator?

"If he did something that bothered me."