
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990                   TAG: 9003122944
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

LET KIDS HEAR ADIS VICTIM

ABOUT THREE years ago, I was told by a powerful man in the local media that we "don't have AIDS here in Roanoke." Having just moved here from New York where AIDS had long been a devastating reality, I found that assertion both amusing and frightening.

Things have certainly come a long way since then. Yet I was so discouraged to read Ed Shamy's recent column and discover that those 70 kids at William Byrd Middle School didn't get the chance to meet Mike Long, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.

I think it was John Lennon who said, `'Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." I'm sure when Long was the age of the William Byrd students, it wasn't part of his plan to speak at junior high schools about what it's like to spend half of your life in a hospital, and the rest being treated like an outcast.

Folks in this area are lucky to have Long, a likable guy and an articulate speaker who sacrificed his privacy to help others, including our children, see AIDS from the all-too-rare perspective of someone who actually has the disease. And there's nobody better to deliver the message that nice guys also can get AIDS.

I manned the Roanoke AIDS Project booth for a couple of hours during Tanglewood Mall's Wellness Weekend. One mother brought her little girl, a 4-year-old holding a balloon, and asked if it was ever too early to begin telling her daughter about AIDS.

But parents were definitely the exception. They'd slow down long enough to figure out what organization we were representing, then cast their eyes downward and make a wide circle around us.

Ironically, the vast majority of those who picked up brochures and other information were children preparing health reports for school. They approached the booth with shy smiles, but a lot of confidence. The children may be less afraid and even more informed about AIDs than are their parents. Perhaps those kids at William Byrd Middle School aren't the ones who most need to meet Long. Maybe it's their parents.

I know from my work with RAP that there are lots of parents in Southwest Virginia who thought AIDS could never happen to their kid. Including Long's.

Though I'm sure the students at William Byrd probably found informative the Everett Koop video shown in place of Long's talk, I think their parents would have benefited more from hearing the former surgeon general. Koop cites AIDS as the single biggest health crisis facing children in America's schools today.

Schools should be clamoring for Long to visit their students, and parents should be on the phone demanding he be invited. We most certainly do have AIDS here in Roanoke. Let's let the kids hear what Long has to say. While he's still available to say it.

by CNB