ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060007
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Here are some sweeping statements about the honesty habits of Roanoke Valley residents:
* Roanokers tend to behave more honestly after Christmas than right before it.
* People who frequent the merchants along Grandin Road tend to be more honest than those who shop at the malls.
* Leaving a restaurant on a full stomach? You're more likely to behave with integrity than you are when hungry.
This is according to recent research conducted by Sara Page, a participant in the Cave Spring Junior High science fair.
Sara, who is 13, has had a personal interest in the topic ever since she got caught stealing a gumball-machine toy at the age of 7. ``We were at Kroger, and I stuck my hand up the little slot and took the little bubble thing,'' she recalls.
``My mom got so mad, she made me go up to the cashier and return it myself.''
Like every kid her age - and every parent of kids her age - Sara was scratching her head last fall trying to think up an interesting project for the dreaded science fair.
Two years before, she tested the effects of caffeine on heart rates and blood pressure. (And found, with the exception of Mountain Dew, very undramatic results.)
Last year she swabbed the throats of 100 seventh-graders - to see if they were sick with strep and didn't know it. (Only two were.)
Her mom, internist Lourdes Page, taught her how to take the cultures, using her younger brother and sister as guinea pigs.
``This year's project was way more fun than bacteria,'' Sara said of putting her finger on the pulse of Roanoke's moral fiber. Here's how she did it:
Before Christmas she wrapped 80 presents, stuffing them with bags for weight, and dropped them off at more than 20 locations across the valley. A fake name, along with her real phone number, was written on the tag of each box.
Those who stumbled across a package and called to return it were told about the project and thanked. Those who opened the package with their own grubby little hands were greeted with this message:
``You have just participated in a poll of public honesty and FAILED. Thank you for providing negative data.''
Sara's original prediction was that Roanoke would fall in line with a Reader's Digest honesty survey that showed 80 percent of people in small towns returned lost wallets, as opposed to only 61 percent in big cities.
Roanoke, Sara was surprised to find, is a bigger city than we tend to think, with a return rate of just 61 percent. Sara had hypothesized that 67 percent would be returned. Some other notable findings:
* A box left on a pool table at The Community Inn on Grandin Road was returned, as opposed to two boxes left in a waiting room at Lewis-Gale Hospital, which were not. (Maybe sick people are under too much pressure to be honest, whereas bar-going pool players are not.)
*Packages dropped at four different gas stations were not returned, with the exception of a gas station that looked like "the scariest place." It had a sign out front that read: ``BEWARE OF DOG."
The unanticipated return of of the package proved to Sara that ``you shouldn't judge people by where they live.''
Sara says her favorite moment in the project came when she and her dad dropped off a package outside Blockbuster Music, then went in the store to shop. ``We looked up at the register and saw people shaking it, going, `Yeah, it feels like there's something inside it,' and `Look, the people left their name and number on it - like they meant to lose it!'''
They even took pictures as the clerk walked into the office to call the number - and talk to Sara's mom. ``But we left before she came back,'' Sara says, giggling.
Her parents, Paul and Lourdes, helped a lot with the project, from funding the $40 worth of wrapping paper to driving her around Roanoke four hours one Saturday. Then there were the phone calls, one of which came at 5 a.m. Paul Page, also an internist, had been on call that night and - thanks to his years of sleep-deprived doctoring experience - even managed to note the location of the lost-and-found package for Sara's records.
A gifted student, Sara doesn't know what she wants to be when she grows up. She plays guard on two basketball teams, collects those ads featuring celebrities with milk moustaches, plays piano and alto sax, and likes to help her mom with patients during school breaks. She's a really cool kid.
Lodged among her Michael Jordan posters and Winnie the Pooh memorabilia, a hand-printed sign in her bedroom shows that honesty isn't just a science fair interest. It says:
``What is popular is not always right. What is right is not always popular.''
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Sara Page. color.by CNB