THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 1, 1994 TAG: 9406290126
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06K EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HEIDI GLICK, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
People who know Jaclyn Hampton usually associate her with environmental issues. She always wears T-shirts with animal prints on them, and her binder is covered with environmentally-aware stickers. When classroom discussions turn to pollution, the rain forest or animal extinction, Hampton, a seventh-grader at Great Neck Middle School, is the first to raise her hand.
Although usually shy, Hampton is very vocal about what she believes in most - saving the world.
She rattles off names of organizations, like the Nature Conservancy, Mountain Lion Coalition and Rain Forest Alliance, as quickly as most students her age rattle off the names of the hottest musical groups.
``When I grow up I don't want to live in an ugly, dirty world,'' she said simply. ``I want it to be cleaner than it is now.''
With that in mind, she entered, and recently won, a statewide poster contest asking students, grades 6-8, to identify an environmental problem and offer a solution.
The Telephone Pioneers of America, a social service organization sponsored by Bell Atlantic, hosted the contest.
``It was stiff competition,'' Vinton Gates, president of Old Dominion Chapter 43, told the students at Great Neck, before awarding Hampton a receipt for her savings bond. ``There were some beautiful posters.''
He encouraged the students to become more involved in the world's problems. ``If you're just taking all the time, you're not living right. You need to give back.''
Hampton won the seventh-grade division for her poster depicting an oil spill in the ocean and its effect on the animals. She used the Exxon Valdez oil spill as a guide.
Hampton, who was awarded a $500 savings bond, was the only student from her school to enter the contest. She said she hopes to influence other students to become more environmentally aware by using herself and the contest as a model.
Norm Saniga, a seventh-grade science teacher at Great Neck, encouraged Hampton to enter the contest. ``I singled her out,'' Saniga said. ``All year long Jaclyn has shown an awareness of the world's environmental problems that you don't often see in students her age.''
For being her science teacher, Saniga was awarded $250 for future classroom supplies.
Hampton said she always has been interested in environmental problems, but became especially active in the last two years. Some of her activism has worn off on her parents and friends, she said.
Her mother, Beverly Holliday, a teacher at Cox High School, is in charge of the school's recycling club.
``I really pressure her,'' said Hampton, who says the family recycles paper and gives old toys and clothes to the Salvation Army. And they try to keep lights off in rooms they're not using.
``But she doesn't do everything I think she should do,'' said Hampton, adding that no one is as extreme as she is.
``Even my dad gets annoyed at me,'' said Hampton, who nags him to put soda cans in a recyling box.
For the poster contest, she drew pictures of fish and ducks smeared with oil.
She stayed home sick from school recently and watched a program on the rain forest. It detailed the problem of the dwindling animal population.
``I was so depressed,'' she said. ``Not that I'm fond of bugs, but I still know they're a part of the earth.'' MEMO: Jennifer Marchione, an eighth-grader at Landstown Middle School, was the
poster winner for the eighth-grade division. A student from Daniel
Morgan Middle School in Winchester won for sixth grade.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by HEIDI GLICK
Jaclyn Hampton's winning poster design depicted pictures of fish and
ducks smeared with oil.
by CNB