DATE: Tuesday, June 10, 1997                TAG: 9706100228

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL  

SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT and SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITERS 

DATELINE: FRANKLIN                          LENGTH:   70 lines

CORRECTION/CLARIFICATION: ***************************************************************** Two Franklin High seniors were misidentified in a photo caption in Tuesday's Hampton Roads section. The students in the photo were Jennifer Ashby and Tom Coffelt. Correction published Wednesday, June 11, 1997 on page A2 of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT. ***************************************************************** FRANKLIN SENIORS PAINT CONFEDERATE FLAG ON BARN PRINCIPAL PEGS IT AS A PROBLEM, ASKS FOR HELP AND COVERS IT OVER HIMSELF.

The South rose with the morning sun in this small industrial city Monday - but it didn't rise high, and not for long.

Matthew Beale and two friends started painting a Confederate flag about 12 feet up on an old barn across from Franklin High School at 6 a.m.

Since the 1960s, seniors have annually painted their initials or names, and the names of schools they will attend in the fall, or future jobs, on the ``graffiti barn.''

Franklin High Principal B. Harper Donahoe stopped by about 10 a.m. to look at the seniors' artwork.

The flag had to go, the principal said. The seniors refused. The principal asked other graduate painters to take over the task, but they wouldn't do it either.

While Beale and his friends went home to talk with their parents about the incident, Donahoe and Assistant Superintendent Alline B. Riddick covered the flag with white paint.

``There were 50 or 60 kids out there painting,'' Beale said. ``None of them thought there was anything wrong with it. A lot of them came by and told us what a neat job we were doing.''

With exams over, the graduates are out, and graduation is Thursday.

School officials condone the barn-painting as long as the seniors have a permission slip signed by their parents and provide the paint, brushes and ladder.

But the Confederate battle flag - not the first to adorn the barn - that Beale and several friends painted did not sit well with the principal.

Later, the trio and other friends left their names on the back of the barn with a protest: ``FHS violates 1 Amdt rights.''

``There's been a Confederate flag on this barn since they've been painting it,'' said FHS senior Frank Pittman, who's headed to Paul D. Camp Community College to study welding.

Beale's father, James B. Beale IV, a member of the Urquhart-Gillette chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, said the flag was not meant as a racial statement.

``We have ancestors who fought for the Confederacy. None of them were slave owners. I have never felt the war was fought over slavery. It was fought for the same reasons our country fought with Great Britain. I've always taught the kids this. There have been other Confederate flags on the barn, and there have never been any complaints so far as I know.''

Riddick said the flag was covered to retain a healthy climate.

``I didn't want anything that was politically incorrect or offensive to any segment of the population,'' she said.

Several students who had agreed to paint over the flag ``sort of disappeared,'' she said.

So Donahoe borrowed a ladder and paint, and she handed him a roller.

``I got some paint on my shoes,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by John H. Sheally/The Virginian-Pilot

Franklin High seniors give a barn its annual coat of graffiti. They

began at 5:30 a.m. Erin Insull and James Andre wait for the ladder.

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