DATE: Saturday, October 4, 1997             TAG: 9710040350

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KIA MORGAN ALLEN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH                        LENGTH:   51 lines

TEACHER TURNS TO TENNIS TO STOP ALL THE RACKET

Chairs scooting under desks. Screech. Chairs pushed back. Screech. Like fingernails on chalkboards, the irritating noise was driving kindergarten teachers at Churchland Academy crazy.

So teacher Vicky Twyford took the matter to court.

Tennis court, that is.

By slitting the tops of tennis balls, then placing them on the bottom of students' chairs, Twyford was able to quiet the racket caused by jittery little tikes. The balls also took care of those ugly black marks made when metal and floor tiling connect.

The idea was such a hit, Principal Claude Parent decided to outfit the whole school - some 7,950 balls.

Parent struck a ball mine when he surfed the Internet and found 20 or so top tennis supply companies. He e-mailed them, asking for new balls, used balls and even unwanted bruised balls.

``I just wanted some tennis balls I could use,'' he said.

He got balls used by Michael Chang and Venus Wilson. They didn't send them personally. Wilson Sporting Goods donated the 14 boxes of balls used during the U.S. Open. Penn anted up balls, too, as did other companies.

Parent also appealed to country clubs and local YMCAs to donate balls.

The yellowish, greenish fuzzy spheres rolled in, enough to cover chairs in two classrooms.

``It's interesting how you get so many different companies and people involved,'' Parent said.

On Thursday, the Coast Guard was added to the list of helpers as five workers dressed more classrooms with the tennis balls.

``They (the balls) are lifesavers,'' said Elaine Holliman, a kindergarten teacher. ``There aren't any marks on the floor and it keeps the noise level down. It's not distracting when someone goes to the bathroom.''

It takes about 150 tennis balls to complete a class, when you count the extra chairs for reading and other work stations. About 45 of the 53 classrooms still need to be dressed.

Said Mary Froehlich, another teacher: ``It's a tremendous change. It's one trick that works.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

MOTOYA NAKAMURA/The Virginian-Pilot

Fourth-grader Brittany Evans watches as Coast Guard representatives

put fuzzy tennis-ball ``feet'' on metal chairs in a classroom at

Churchland Academy. The U.S. Open donated the balls. The workers

are, from left, Lt. Cmdr. Henry Hudson; Senior Chief Wesley Allely;

Christine MacKenn, a contractor; and Lt. j.g. Daniel Pickles.

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