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

DATE: TUESDAY, June 14, 1994                   TAG: 9406270129
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

GRADUATING, WITH HONOR

TRY TO take in a high school's graduation ceremony in the next few days, or perhaps a church service where the congregation is recognizing its grads. Glance through a high school's 1994 yearbook, or maybe dig out of the recycling bin the special Neighbors sections, published by this newspaper, featuring area graduates.

It will make you feel much better about today's teen-agers.

So often they're described as a generation in crisis. So often they're stereotyped by depressing statistics on school dropouts, teen pregnancy and juvenile violent-crime rates, by stories of 17-year-old murderers and 16-year-old unwed mothers.

In the old days, high-school graduates offered us images of hope for the future.

Now ...

Well, guess what? They still do - as the records of hundreds in Southwest Virginia's Class of '94 attest to. Hundreds of the region's young people have spent their high-school years working, studying and excelling.

They have been members of the National Beta Club, the National Honor Society, Spanish clubs, German clubs, French clubs. They have been varsity cheerleaders and student-government officers; wrestling champions and track stars. They have played in high-school bands and youth symphonies. They have won prizes for science projects, essay contests and spelling bees.

Many - a surprising number, perhaps, to the mistakenly jaded - have also been active in youth activities at their churches and synagogues. Quite a few, even while holding down part-time jobs, have found time for a wide range of volunteer efforts - at nursing homes, for example - that are not school- or church-related.

These kids can't be dismissed as goody-two-shoes, teachers' pets, grinds, aberrations of their generation. There are too many of them.

Some may have experimented with alcohol, drugs and sex. They have not been immune to peer pressures that face every generation of young people.

Certainly, not all come from Ozzie-and-Harriet family backgrounds. Many of the Class of '94's top achievers come from single-parent homes, or "blended-marriage" homes. Some come from poor homes. Some know full well what it's like to have family blives wracked by divorce, alcoholism and physical or emotional abuse.

But somehow they've kept their heads on straight. They have not come to rely on guns or gangs or drugs or promiscuous sex. They've relied on their own good sense and values, moral and otherwise. They have sought out and followed good role models, be they parents, teachers, neighbors, church leaders - or friends their own age who have similar values.

Many in the Class of '94 have themselves become role models - to younger students, younger brothers and sisters. And to old fogies, they are a welcome reminder that if the kids are our future, the future may not be going to hell in a handbasket after all.

Let's not be blind to the difficulties that face many of today's young people, reared in a high-speed, high-drug, high-consumption culture - difficulties compounded by public policies that, wittingly or not, result in a bias agaisnt the young. Unless problems are recognized, they can't be fixed.

But neither let us forget that most young people are successfully picking their ways through the minefields. Most are proving themselves equal to the task of preparing themselves for productive citizenship.

by CNB