DATE: Thursday, November 13, 1997           TAG: 9711130517

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CURRITUCK                         LENGTH:   72 lines

ROWDY STUDENTS CROWD CURRITUCK FERRYYOUNGSTERS HAVE TO USE THE BOAT TO GET FROM KNOTTS ISLAND TO MAINLAND SCHOOL.

Cram nearly 100 teen-agers into a couple of small passenger lounges on a ferry after a long day at school and what will you get?

The same sorts of problems Currituck school officials and the crew of the Knotts Island Ferry are running into.

Every day at 7 a.m. and at 3:30 p.m., two busloads of students take the 45-minute boat ride across the Currituck Sound to and from school. Add to that a dozen or so students who drive their own cars or ride with somebody.

Students on the buses have to pile into the two passenger lounges - high school students in one, junior high students in the other. It's standing room only, and all that youthful energy nearly bounces through the walls.

``It's extraordinarily nerve-racking to people who have to be in charge of them,'' said Tom Davies, transportation director for Currituck County Schools.

The school system and the ferry system, run by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, met last month and came up with several possible solutions:

Make the students and the buses drive around the Currituck Sound by crossing the Virginia line and returning back to the mainland, which takes about 15 minutes longer than the ferry ride.

Mandate that the 7 a.m. and the 3:30 p.m. ferry crossings be only for students and school staff. That won't work in just a few more years, says Davies, because the ferry capacity is 150 and the number of students grows every year.

Keep the students on the buses. The school can provide heaters or air conditioners, and the ferry will provide the power.

Suspend any troublemakers from riding the ferry during the two school runs.

Jerry Gaskill, director of the NCDOT Ferry Division, has agreed to put into place any or all of the options. In a recent letter to Davies, Gaskill said the ferry crew would enforce discipline of students in cars, and the school system would be responsible for the students on the buses, if they stayed on them.

``It must be understood, however, that the Ferry Division reserves the right to enforce discipline in any instance should such action be deemed necessary by the master of the vessel,'' wrote Gaskill.

One master of the vessel, Capt. Gerald Rollinson, said: ``I don't have any problems with them.''

But another unnamed crew member said Rollinson doesn't have problems because he's up in the pilot house steering the boat.

Davies recently sent a letter to the parents of the 109 students who could potentially ride the ferry and asked for help on a solution. His deadline is Nov. 21, but so far he's received only five phone calls.

``It appears the silent majority really doesn't have a problem with what we're trying to do,'' Davies said.

Knotts Island students have ridden the ferries for decades. But in recent years the rural community connected by land to Virginia Beach has had a mini-boom in population. Nobody knows exactly how many more kids ride the ferries this year than in past years.

``If you, like, walk in there then you, like, get pushed,'' said one 15-year-old waiting with a group of teen-agers near the picnic tables Wednesday afternoon as the ferry docked and prepared to receive passengers. ``It's a lot worse this year.''

``There's been a lot of fights,'' said a 16-year-old student.

``What are you talking about? You're the one who starts them,'' said another student while standing on a picnic table. Shortly afterward, he sent a young man sailing from the top of the table after a friendly wrestling match.

In a few minutes, the ferry boat crew would shunt all of that energy into a passenger lounge. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

DREW C. WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot

After school is out for the day, buses and students board the ferry

in Currituck for the 45-minute trip to Knotts Island.

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