THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602080141
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Someday Matthew Dobos will be able to tell his children a whopper of a story about how far he had to go to get to school. However, he can't tell them that he walked.
Dobos (pronounced Dew BOASH) traveled 5,000 miles to attend Tallwood High School this year. The 16-year-old caught a plane in Hungary and got off in Norfolk. He is attending high school for a year in the United States under the auspices of Youth For Understanding, an international program which matches exchange students and host families.
Dobos is in his junior year of high school and he'll be in his junior year next year, too. It's not that Dobos isn't a bright student. Quite the contrary. He plans to study law in a Hungarian college.
``School is much easier here,'' he said, with typical teenage candor. ``In Hungary, we take 16 or 17 subjects a year, so I'll have two years left.''
Dobos has lived with Ken and Paula Rickey in Carolanne Farm since his arrival last August. His first impression of Virginia Beach:
``It was hot,'' he said.
The Rickeys have sponsored foreign exchange students before, but Matthew is the first male student in the Rickey household. They have three daughters and have had female students before. All the other exchange students attended Kempsville High School, alma mater of the three Rickey siblings.
``Each high school takes a maximum of five exchange students,'' said Ken Rickey. ``Kempsville already had five, so Matthew was placed in Tallwood.''
Dobos could have transferred to a Tallwood host home, but by then he had become comfortable in the Rickey residence. He rides his bicycle the seven miles to Tallwood, said Ken Rickey. Exchange students are not allowed to drive motorized vehicles.
Paula Rickey sees her job as being Dobos' American mother. ``I'm not a landlady,'' she said. ``We don't run a boarding house. I'm a mom.'' Mom enough to hassle Dobos about his long hair.
``I'm here as part of family,'' the teenager said, flicking a strand of hair behind his ear.
He has visited local beaches, movies, malls and other popular attractions with the Rickey family as part of his year in the United States.
Though Dobos had never traveled outside Europe until his flight to the United States, he has adopted American ways easily. He wears T-shirts and jeans and his bedroom looks like the bedroom of an American teenager, all posters and clutter. He has a teenage boy's appetite, too.
This growing boy weighs about 180 pounds and stands ``190 centimeters.'' That's almost 6 feet 3 inches.
``I like choppers (Harley-Davidson motorcycles) and the Hell's Angels,'' the future lawyer said.
Dobos comes from a small town called Gyula. His father is an architect/businessman who owns two factories. He has a 13-year-old sister whose Hungarian name translates to ``Catherine.''
He talked about his native land becoming free of Communist rule with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.
``Be sure to let everyone know that my country is now a free state, a capitalist country,'' he said.
It even has fast-food franchises, he added. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY EDWARDS
Matthew Dobos, 16, has an afinity for motorcycles, which decorate
his typical teenager's room at the Rickey house in Carolanne Farm.
by CNB