DATE: Friday, March 21, 1997                TAG: 9703210948

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B03  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: EDUCATION 

                                            LENGTH:   47 lines

EYES AND EARS

SUFFOLK - Genius, Thomas Alva Edison said, is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration. Matthew Reid provided evidence of that at the School Board's March meeting.

Matthew, an eighth-grader at John F. Kennedy Middle School, won an ``egg-drop'' contest at Old Dominion University as part of the college's National Engineers Week celebration.

He built a rocket-shaped protective carrier for a raw egg and dropped it 25 feet, hitting a target and not breaking the egg.

He carried his cardboard-and-plastic-foam contraption to the meeting lectern.

``I was told to tell you how I made it,'' Matthew told the board members.

Pause.

``Basically, I stayed up all night making it.'' TEACHERS, EN GARDE . . .

VIRGINIA BEACH - There's studying. But if that doesn't get Johnny or Jane onto the honor roll, a martial-arts school seems to be suggesting a more hands-on approach.

A sign outside the Princess Anne Road facility advertises: ``Tae Kwon Do For Better Grades.''

Hopefully, clients will already be proficient in spelling. The rest of the sign reads: ``2 Weekz $12.'' ABOVE THE CLOUDS. . .

RICHMOND - From his office on the 25th floor of the Monroe Building, a good 32 stories above the James River in Richmond, the state's schools superintendent, Richard T. La Pointe, can see a lo-o-ong way south on a clear day. On not-so-clear days, he enjoys watching dark storms move across the flat landscape toward the city.

``We're above the clouds here, sometimes,'' he told recent visitors to his office.

And above the law, sometimes. La Pointe said police or traffic helicopters often fly past beneath his window level.

- Matthew Bowers

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