Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 17, 1993 TAG: 9306170092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY CELESTE KATZ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Classes ended Tuesday in Roanoke, and Friday in Salem and Roanoke County, unleashing a whirlwind of locker-emptying unparalleled for the duration of a school year.
Little, if any, of the debris was exotic. Most was just the crumpled memories of a year's worth of algebra, phys ed and socializing.
There's clothing - shoes, coats, gym suits - which will be sent to the lost-and-found or donated to charity. The rest, mostly tons of paper, was sent directly to the dump - usually with no detour to the recycling center.
The empty hallways of William Fleming High School were spotless Wednesday. But just a few days ago, according to a custodian at the 1,600-student school, they were paved with wall-to-wall trash - heaps of abandoned notebooks, tests, and homework that fell short of the trash bin before students bolted.
"Kids leave good stuff in there," said one worker.
"It's more disgusting than interesting," said Patrick Henry High English instructor Gerald Ciaffone, who found six-month-old lunches in lockers with "all sorts of strange, multicolored life forms" growing on them.
And Betty Blalock, a main office worker at William Ruffner Middle School, managed to find pearls amid the muck.
"They left their love notes in there," she said. "They're real interesting."
For some, it's not just what comes out of the lockers. It's a matter, too, of what goes back in.
Pranksters prey on lockers around this time of year, said Fleming rising junior Sean Woods, en route to make sure his own locker was clean. "Sometimes someone'll come and stick some condoms in there. I didn't use my locker much this year; I just want to make sure no one put any Maxi Pads in there or anything."
by CNB