ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, August 9, 1996 TAG: 9608090086
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A12 EDITION: METRO
STEPHANIE Love, who graduated from Patrick Henry High School in June, isn't the first Roanoke Valley teen-ager to go through 12 years of public school with a perfect attendance record.
It's nonetheless quite an accomplishment. Plus, she had perfect attendance for three years in nursery school before entering first grade.
Love exemplifies one of the most important skills that employers nowadays want to see, but aren't always getting. It's not rocket science. It's reliability - the habit, the expectation of showing up, day after day, on time, ready to go.
The value of this trait helps explain why an initiative begun in Franklin County - in which prospective employers agree to take into consideration, among other things, a job-applicant's high-school attendance record - has spread rapidly throughout the region.
It is no wonder that, for two years, Love also has never missed a day at her part-time job at Roanoke Memorial Hospital.
Sure, some luck is involved. She apparently has enjoyed good health, never having a serious illness that caused her to miss school.
She was lucky, too, that something, someone - probably her parents - nurtured her passion for education. As a very little kid, she played ``school,'' pretending to be the teacher, pretending teddy bears were her students. Now she hopes to become an elementary-school teacher.
Call it luck for the Roanoke Valley, as well, that there are youngsters like Love growing up here who take seriously their responsibility not to fritter away the opportunity that an education provides.
Luck, though, has little or nothing to do with what we expect of others, or of ourselves. With a new school year starting soon, we challenge all first-graders - and their parents - to follow Love's example.
LENGTH: Short : 40 linesby CNB