THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602290284
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Dante Barr wants to be a firefighter when he grows up because there are lots of fires in his neighborhood.
Since his family moved into the aged, wood-sided Fairwood Homes in June, about 13 fires have erupted, according to the Portsmouth Fire Department.
On Jan. 13, he was watching Saturday cartoons with his mother. His ears tuned in as the sound of sirens drew nearer, nearer. The gangly third-grader sprang for the door.
``I've got to go see what's going on.''
He dashed to the 3600 block of Victory Boulevard.
Thick black smoke billowed. A woman, choking, crying hysterically searched for all of her children. One. Two. Three?
Big red fire trucks wheeled up. Men in blue uncoiled the long gray firehose that Dante yearns to wield one day. An ambulance arrived. Police cars. A crowd. TV and newspaper cameras.
And Dante ended up on the evening news, a hero.
Word spread quickly: Dante had rushed into the back door of the burning abode, grabbed a helpless infant and delivered the baby safely to a paramedic. The roof of the house had collapsed, he said.
At Highland-Biltmore Elementary School, the PTA presented a plaque: To Dante Barr, for his heroic acts.
Dante had had some problems in school. This could be a turning point, a teacher thought.
Feb. 14 was declared ``Dante Barr Day.'' A special assembly was called. The drill team performed. The chorus sang ``You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings.'' Dante was presented with a certificate. His mother, Hermoine Barr, beamed pure pride. Beside her sat aunts, who nodded approval.
Midway through the ceremony, Fire Marshal Matthew Giovannelli arrived.
He pulled Assistant Principal Michele Ramey aside.
Dante's story didn't add up, according to the official Fire Department investigation.
Firefighters found the back door locked. The only paramedic on the scene said no one had handed her an infant. Though the house was badly damaged, the roof had not collapsed.
Principal Ramey pulled Dante aside for a brief lesson in truth telling.
``I want to have the fire marshal talk to him,'' says Ramey. ``It would have more impact if it came from the fire department simply because Dante wants to be a firemen.''
Dante, all big brown eyes and dimples, sticks to his version of events. ``Nobody believes me,'' he said as he guided me down the path he ran that day to a boarded-up, blackened dwelling that still smelled of smoke.
Dante's mother doesn't know what to make of it all. ``In my heart, I don't think that he would lie about something like that,'' she says.
She watches as her boy plays with the big remote-control fire truck and the little emergency service cars that she has bought for him at Christmas and a birthday.
She hears when he says, ``Ma, this is what I'm going to be when I grow up.''
There are lots of issues here, most importantly that Fairwood Homes and the Portsmouth Fire Department need to do more to fireproof those dwellings. Now.
As for the differing versions of events, I don't know who's telling the truth.
What's important is that Dante Barr has a vision to make something of himself. Too often, such sparks of ambition are allowed to sputter out in boys like him who live in poverty without fathers.
The right mixture of compassion and action can nurture Dante's dream of rising to the alarm, sliding down the mythic firehouse pole, riding the hook-and-ladder truck and hauling that high-powered hose.
School, community, church, family, the fire department, Big Brothers and others can all pitch in to make sure that some day Dante earns his living rescuing helpless people from burning buildings.
Or that spark of ambition can be fueled by the wrong fires. And Dante's dream can become Dante's inferno. ILLUSTRATION: GARY C. KNAPP
Dante Barr, 9, and his mother, Hermoine Barr, moved into the aged,
wood-sided Fairwood Homes near Tower Mall in Portsmouth in June.
by CNB