TEAM SPIRIT TRAINING WINDS DOWN

With the Team Spirit Leadership Training Conference winding down, plans were formed Thursday night for drunken-driving education programs to be implemented in Cape Girardeau County public schools.

The Team Spirit conference, which has gone on since Tuesday at the Victorian Inn, is a series of workshops and demonstrations about laws and the realities of driving while intoxicated. The seminar was attended by 111 students from area high schools. This is the third year the Cape Girardeau Safe Community program sponsored the conference.

Cape Girardeau Central and Notre Dame high schools were represented at the conference by teams. Jackson did not have a team this year but had two teen facilitators guiding the students through the process.

Beth Roethemeyer, 18, and Kiley Bollinger, 18, were the teen facilitators from Jackson. This was Roethemeyer's third year of participation, and Bollinger's second year, in the conference.

Roethemeyer said Jackson High School didn't have a team because students who would have participated were busy in other groups. The school has a number of groups dealing with drunken driving.

Jackson High School has programs such as High Step, Jocks and Jam. Students participating in High Step go to classes in area elementary schools to perform skits and to talk to young students about such things as DWI, drugs and smoking. The athletes in Jocks talk to the same age groups about how drugs, alcohol and smoking can keep kids out of athletics. Jam is drama students performing plays with alcohol and drug themes for these same kids.

Roethemeyer said High Step is the school's biggest program.

Jackson's programs have strong support from the school, community and businesses. Bollinger said Cape Girardeau County is lucky to have the active support of its law enforcement agencies in DWI education.

Bollinger said Jackson's Team Spirit plans have always focused on student education. She doesn't think future plans from these conferences will deal much with community education.

"I think the community could have more information than it does," Bollinger said. "Even we learned stuff here in some of the workshops that we didn't know, and I'm sure our community doesn't know."

Cape Girardeau's teams are following similar paths in their planning process. Both Cape Central's and Notre Dame's teams will be initiating education programs that focus on school-age children.

Courtney Bradley, 15, and Dawn Conner, 16, both of Cape Central, said their plan is to raise awareness among their peers. They said they will bring in speakers and MADD representatives as well as staging accident simulations.

Bethani Bandeven, 16, and Katherine Mayer, 16, both of Notre Dame, said their school is planning a crash simulation the week before prom. Mayer also said their plan is to increase participation in the school's SADD program.

Both teams said parents in Cape Girardeau could be better informed about DWI. Cape Central's team said it would have at least one program that involves parents.