ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 14, 1995 TAG: 9512140016
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: DUBLIN
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
Pulaski County students have found lots of ways to get out the message to stay in school: posters, slogans, skits and plain old conversation.
"School, as we all know, can get boring at times, right?" Alexi Moseman, a Pulaski County High School Senior, told a group of middle school students.
He asked them what types of people they admired.
The students mentioned doctors and lawyers, among others.
"All these people have one thing in common," Moseman pointed out afterward. "They stayed in school."
Moseman urged the other students to find at least one thing they really liked and then go beyond what was taught in the classroom to learn about it. "Me, I want to be a jazz musician, which I admit is not a money-making job," he said. He's made a point of putting in extra music study outside of class.
"Even it it's something like collecting insects, do it on your own," he said. "Teachers love that!"
A dropout prevention task force at the high school pulled together all the programs, said 12th-grade counselor Cindy Watson.
Moseman and the students in the high school's advanced theater arts program wrote and performed a skit about what happens when you drop out of school.
The skit featured such characters as advice specialist "Dr. Bore" and even a musical number.
Some of the characters depicted in the skit showed graphically what could result from leaving school before being prepared for any kind of job.
"You know, I'd give anything for a school lunch," one said. "You ever eat out of a Dumpster?"
Pupils from the county's elementary schools drew more than 400 posters pushing dropout prevention. Forty-nine posters were chosen for display at the New River Valley Mall.
Students at the high school were asked to submit slogans on dropout prevention. The winning slogan will be placed on a billboard in the county.
Books were donated as poster contest prizes by Roanoke's Books-A-Million, Ram's Head Book Shop, the Norwood Center at Radford and Pulaski Wal-Mart. Wade's Food stores in Pulaski and Dublin donated grocery bags on which middle school students drew pictures or wrote essays on dropout preventions.
LENGTH: Short : 50 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: PAUL DELLINGER/Staff. Pulaski County High Schoolby CNBstudents Hope Cummings and Alexi Moseman tell Dublin Middle School
kids why they shouldn't drop out.