Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 29, 1993 TAG: 9307300068
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Huh?
That's right. Cop camp.
And these kids volunteered for it.
Perhaps it had something to do with the promise of swimming at Smith Mountain Lake, tubing down the New River, hiking in Jefferson National Forest or swinging from the high ropes course at Hollins College.
Or maybe it was the thought of riding in a squad car with the sirens on, joking around with Officer T.J. Palmer or getting a hug from Officer Frank Garrett.
Whatever it was, so many kids applied that some had to be turned away, said Jerry Dean, commanding officer of the Roanoke Police Department's Youth Bureau. In the city's first weeklong Drug Abuse Resistance Education camp, there was room for only 96.
Ninety-six rising sixth-graders, all of them graduates of Roanoke City schools' 16-week DARE program. Some of them troublemakers, some of them honor students. All of them - 24 at a time - heading for four days of rock-climbing, horseback riding and other outdoor challenges interwoven with lessons in self-esteem, leadership and teamwork.
Funded with $20,000 from state and local governments, the four camp sessions ending next week take the children and 10 DARE officers all over the region to reinforce the DARE lessons learned in elementary school - when to take risks, how to say no, how to solve conflicts and work as a team.
The DARE officers hope the students will take these lessons with them to middle school, where peer pressure begins to mount and students can get steered on a course that leads to dropping out.
Dean sees the campers as 96 potential positive role models who can help police prevent another generation from turning to drugs and violence.
"Hopefully, we can start to stem the tide of what's going on out there," he said. "We have enough negative role models."
Andrea Horvath couldn't agree more. Ask this 12-year-old, whose family moved here two years ago from Los Angeles, what she likes most about her new home, and she'll give it to you straight.
"There are no gang members."
Andrea remembers when gang members beat up her 13-year-old brother in California. She sees no problem surrounding herself with police officers, or looking upon them as friends.
That's just what the DARE officers want. But they don't pretend danger isn't out there - even in Roanoke.
That reality was driven home with a warning delivered in such matter-of-fact tones you would have thought Camp Director Leigh Ellen Bristol was reminding the kids not to put gum under the seats of the school bus.
No guns or knives at camp, she told them. If found, they would be taken away.
At DARE camp, even the police officers leave their guns behind.
They wear no holsters, not even a uniform. Just shorts, T-shirts and ball caps - unless they're tubing down the New River.
That calls for swimwear.
Or swinging from the ropes course at Hollins College.
That calls for helmets and harnesses - the stuff of "reasonable risks."
A "reasonable risk" is something that's safe to try, Officer Manuel "Crash" Bocanegra explained to the campers last week. Unlike drugs or alcohol - "unreasonable risks" - the ropes course comes with safety features and supervising adults, he said.
"If it wasn't safe, we wouldn't ask you to do it," he told them.
Bocanegra also reminded the campers of another DARE lesson - the right to say no. If they didn't feel comfortable taking a risk, they didn't have to.
The thought of jumping off a 20-foot platform - with or without a harness - seemed pretty unreasonable to Andrea as she looked down at her friends and the officers waiting below.
"I'll catch you," Bocanegra promised.
"No, I'll be dead by then," she told him. Minutes later she was swinging through the air, hands and feet outstretched while the rope tugged at her middle.
It helped to know that "Crash" had gone before - and landed without a scratch. Bocanegra earned his nickname by injuring himself at almost every activity the campers tried.
At a baseball game Tuesday, he slid into a briar patch, scratching his cheek, nose and lips.
During a kickball game, he slid around a base and tore up his left leg.
While swimming, he playfully pushed a camper into the water, then fell in and cut his thumb on a rock.
Another camper caught him in the back with a fishing hook. He even lost a tooth during a water fight.
None of the campers fared that badly. One fractured a wrist during a kickball game; another ended up with a bloody nose.
That's what a DARE officer calls "consequences." They follow risks. But there are good consequences, as well.
Like Tonya Brown's story.
Tonya, 10, came to DARE camp terrified of water. More than anything else, she dreaded the day campers would bob down the New River in rubber tubes.
But with everyone's encouragement - including that of bus driver Carolyn Manns (who waded out to help even though she couldn't swim) - Brown learned to relax and enjoy herself.
She learned "not to be scared," she said, "and try everything."
That's a big step for a little girl who found just the thought of camp so frightening she almost didn't show up.
"She asked me if she could do it, but then she changed her mind," said Tonya's mother, Delores, during a farewell picnic for campers and their parents Thursday.
"This was her first time away from me," she said.
That frightened Mom almost as much as Tonya. But like her daughter, Delores Brown gritted her teeth and plunged in.
"I think I made it," she said.
by CNB