
DATE: Sunday, June 15, 1997                 TAG: 9706150037

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LORRAINE EATON, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  131 lines

A TEEN'S CHOICE SHE BROKE THE RULES WHEN SHE GOT PREGNANT. SHE PROVED THE STATISTICS WRONG WHEN SHE MARRIED AND FINISHED SCHOOL ON TIME.

At the end of her junior year of high school, Cathy Crawford penned these words to her parents: I'm sorry. We will come back. I hope I'll be accepted back into the family.

She didn't attend the Catholic High overnight retreat that started that evening. Instead, she and her boyfriend, Dave Howell, drove through the night to Jacksonville, Fla., where a 16-year-old can get married without parental consent. Less than 48 hours later, wearing her confirmation dress, Cathy became Dave's lawfully wedded wife. On New Year's Eve, she became a mother.

Getting married was hardly how this softball playing member of the national honor society expected to start her senior year of high school.

Graduating from high school on time Saturday, with honors and a pile of scholarship money is, statistically speaking, hardly how anyone would expect her to end it.

``Why not finish school?'' said Cathy, who is now 17, bouncing little Nicole on her leg. ``Especially when they have all of these programs to help. Why stay stuck?''

About 70 percent of teen-age mothers eventually graduate from high school, but many don't get there until they are 39-years-old,according to The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based, non-profit organization that studies reproductive health issues. At Norfolk's Coronado School for pregnant girls, about 23 percent of the student body dropped out this school year.

``It is uncommon for a teen (mother) to be married and to finish high school, and to finish high school on time,'' said Kristin Moore of Child Trends Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based, nonpartisan research firm. ``It is even more rare to finish high school and to go on to college.''

In South Hampton Roads, 85 percent of teen-age pregnancies occur out of wedlock, according to the state Department of Health. Whether these girls eventually marry is not recorded by the state, but the Guttmacher Institute estimates that only 11 percent of pregnant teens marry before a baby is born.

Cathy and Dave met in summer 1995 at a pool where they were both lifeguards. They hadn't been thinking about marriage at all in May 1996, when Cathy learned that she was pregnant.

At the time, Dave, a 1994 graduate of Maury High, was living with friends and finishing classes at Tidewater Community College with plans to transfer to a four-year school. After graduation, Cathy wanted to go to New York University where she would learn to be an actuary.

Last week, perched on the couch in the couple's tidy, tiny two-bedroom apartment, Cathy said that she knew going into this that most teen-age mothers don't do so well financially or academically. Dave recalls the anguished hours they spent parked in Cathy's truck overlooking the Chesapeake Bay, wondering what in the world they would do.

``I had no idea what to do'' Cathy said. ``I was constantly thinking . . . that my parents would kill me.''

There was the religious issue, too. In her morality classes at Catholic High, subjects ranged from the death penalty to abortion, which the Catholic church vehemently opposes. But Cathy didn't feel ready for parenthood. She considered all of her options, but ruled out adoption and abortion.

Dave said he'd stand by her no matter what. He, too, opposed abortion. And he had seen what life was like for children of young, unmarried couples when one of his roommates split with his baby's mother. ``I wanted my daughter to know from the get-go that I wanted her . . . that I couldn't run from the consequences.''

So one day while parked at the Ocean View beach, Dave asked Cathy to marry him. He promised to stay with her and support her and the baby, to be a dad, not just a biological father. About a month later, she accepted his proposal. ``We thought it was pretty much morally what we should do,'' Cathy said. ``We loved each other and thought we could make things work.''

Cathy wore Dave's high school ring instead of a diamond.

After marrying in the Jacksonville courthouse with Dave's mother as the witness, they returned to Norfolk and rented a Willoughby apartment and fulfilled their summer job commitments. Then they moved to Florida and lived with Dave's parents, David and Glenda Howell. But jobs for non-degreed workers were few. Dave worked taking care of office plants. He got a second job lifeguarding at a pool.

Cathy started senior year in a school for pregnant teens. But she was homesick, and her pregnancy was complicated by gestational diabetes. Dave sensed that his wife needed to be near her parents.

Shocked. That was Wayne and Janie Crawford's reaction to the note that their daughter wrote them months earlier. They called Cathy immediately after reading it.

They were happy when they heard that she was coming back to Norfolk to have the baby. They found a quiet apartment on a tree-lined street. Wayne Crawford painted the kitchen and the nursery.

Dave put off college and started looking for a full-time job to support his family and finally found one he loves at Sports Authority.

Because of the diabetes, Cathy was assigned a home-bound instructor, but had to drop calculus because there was no teacher. Nicole was born before the end of the first semester of her senior year, but Cathy still earned straight A's.

Cathy could have attended Granby High for her final semester, but paying for child care five days a week was not an option. So Cathy took her final semester of classes at Norfolk Preparatory High School, an alternative night school. Lacking only two credits, Cathy attended school two days a week from 3:30 to 9:30 p.m., and earned A's in those two classes as well. She was awarded $3,000 in academic scholarships and will enter Old Dominion University full-time in the fall, as will Dave. He plans to work full-time while in school.

Both have grants to help pay tuition. The only other assistance they get is the Women and Infant Care checks for food, and Medicaid for Nicole.

Both sets of parents help out as much as they can. ``There's a line, though'' Wayne Crawford said, ``where we feel like they've got to do it on their own. It's the road they've chosen.''

Looking back, Cathy and Dave are glad they took it.

``It's pretty tough,'' Cathy said.

``But we're making it,'' Dave said.

``We're both lucky we had a good set of clothes going into this.'' Cathy laughed.

If Cathy and Dave want to keep beating the odds against teen-age pregnancies they will have to do more than study and work hard.

``The odds of being out of poverty are certainly greater for teens who marry, and stay married,'' Moore said. ``That's the crucial consideration, that the marriage has to last.''

Cathy's milestone march across the stage on Saturday coincided with another milestone: the couple's first wedding anniversary. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Cathy Howell, 17, left, graduated with honors Saturday from Norfolk

Preparatory High. Among those at the ceremony at Booker T.

Washington High School were her husband, Dave, left, holding their

daughter, Nicole; father Wayne Crawford; and grandmother, Elizabeth

Crawford.

Photo

LAWRENCE JACKSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Dave and Cathy Howell, with Nicole, faced the consequences of their

actions and say they will keep fighting the odds against their

success. KEYWORDS: PREGNANCY TEENAGERS