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

DATE: TUESDAY, May 29, 1990                   TAG: 9005290279
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND                                 LENGTH: Short

INVITED TO JOIN KKK, EXCHANGE STUDENT SAYS

Lance Cheesman returned to his home near Wellington over the weekend after a six-month exchange to Hermitage High School in Henrico County.

Cheesman said fellow students produced their KKK membership cards and asked him to join the white supremacist group.

"It's really alive there," Cheesman said today. "I really freaked out and just said I had too many other things to do and didn't have enough time. I was shocked and I didn't really know what to say."

The school's principal, Doug Hunt, said he knew nothing about any KKK activity at the school.

"I'm shocked, too. I don't know what to say. I've never seen anything like that or heard any evidence of anything like that," Hunt said.

Cheesman said he is part Maori, the Polynesian indigenous people of New Zealand.

"They all thought I was Australian and said what a good suntan I had. I didn't want anything to do with it," Cheesman said. "They don't even know where New Zealand is . . . they've never heard of Maori."

Hunt said the 1,600-student school has no history of any racial problems.

"Our school is about one-fourth minority and our student government president and the senior class president are both black," he said. "That's a sign of a very healthy situation in my opinion."

Hunt said Cheesman was a member of the school's wrestling team. He said Cheesman met some Hermitage wrestlers when they went to New Zealand and decided to become an exchange student at the school.