TEENS TEACH KIDS TO AVOID DRUGS; ADULTS AND STUDENTS ARE HONORED WITH SPECIAL WALL AT THE MALL

If you go in to the West Park Mall from the northern main entrance, look to your left before reaching the center court. There, in two kiosks, are pictures of some very special people in Cape Girardeau.

Bill Askew, coordinator of Drug-Free Schools programming for the Cape Girardeau school district, selected photos of 12 adults and about 15 high school students who have contributed significantly to battling drugs within the schools.

"It was meant to recognize those who have done a lot of work in the community in the area of drug prevention," Askew said. "These are people who have gone above and beyond their regular jobs and have been active in many community projects."

The high school students are members of CASA, Central Against Substance Abuse, many of whom have worked in the peer education programming this year.

This past year was the first for a new type of drug programming for some elementary students in the district. Specially-trained high school students entered the classrooms as teachers, acting as role-models for the students and bringing them a serious message about drug abuse.

Casi Krauss, a junior at Cape Central High School, was one of the teachers in the program.

"I felt that the kids really learned something from us, but we also learned a lot from them," said Krauss. "You really couldn't just go into the classrooms and make something up you had to be prepared the kids were so inquisitive."

Krauss said that although she cannot attend the training camp this summer (she has already been to it once), she fully intends on teaching again next year.

"I learned so much this year," Krauss said. "Some of the kids asked questions that I didn't even know the answer to. There's so much going on in their minds; they want to know everything."

Angie Askew, a senior at Cape Central who served as an Advisory Board representative this year in the CASA organization, also was a peer educator.

"I really think the program was pretty effective most of the kids were really tuned into what we were saying," Askew said. "The best part was the last class, when we asked them to tell us about what they learned; they really showed us that they had been listening and had learned several lessons during the classes."

Askew said that she felt that high schoolers were a more effective medium for conveying the anti-drug message to children.

"We aren't adults like their parents or their teachers, but we aren't kids either," Askew said. "We were people they could look up to, who they could trust.

"And we had to be people they could trust," she said. "A lot of the kids asked us if we had ever done drugs; we had to be able to honestly tell them `no'."

Askew is graduating at the end of this month and plans to attend Southeast Missouri State University in the fall.

"If there is any kind of drug free program there, I plan to get involved," Askew said. "We're also encouraging other students, including seventh and eighth graders, to sign up for the training camp and to become peer leaders."

The adult-kiosk features people from the community who have gone above and beyond the call of duty to spread the anti-drug message to students and to other adults.

Among those pictured are:

Sharee Galnore, coordinator of the traffic safety programming at the Cape Girardeau Police Department, who is also very active in community team training for substance abuse training;

Officer Jeannie Dailey, the Cape Girardeau Police Department's DARE officer, who is also active in drug prevention teams;

Linda Goodman, head nurse for Cape Girardeau Public Schools, who works closely with the community action teams, works at the training workshop every year and is a leader in community drug prevention; and

Jim Hicks, associate pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church, who works with the school district's drug prevention teams and with Developing Capable People.

"The people pictured in the display are key members of the community who put forth a great deal of their personal time to do a majority of the drug prevention work," said Askew. "We put the pictures together to recognize their efforts.

"There is a real lack of role models for our children today," Askew said. "These people have shown the strength of character and have given of themselves to make this area a better place for the kids to grow up."

The students' pictures will be replaced in the fall with photos of the new class of peer educators and CASA leaders, but remain a permanent fixture in the West Park Mall.

The adults' pictures will be taken down in a few weeks, but Askew hopes to place them in the kiosks again sometime around Drug Prevention Week this year.

"These people are the people who started all the drug prevention programming throughout the city," Askew said. "It was largely due to their success that the school district hired me to be a full-time coordinator of the efforts."