Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406060140
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: |By JOEL TURNER| |STAFF WRITER|
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In locker 207 in Penn Hall at Patrick Henry High in Roanoke, Jermain Compton has a copy of the May 9, 1989 edition of Sports Illustrated with Pete Rose on the cover.
Nearby, Carmen Rye has a can of hair spray in her locker. Pictures of Alabama and other country singers adorn the inside of her locker door.
At Cave Spring High, Jackie Malcolm's locker doubles as a cosmetics kit.
"Every woman needs lipstick, mirrors and pictures of rock stars in their locker," said Malcolm, pointing to the pictures inside her door.
Down the hall, David Asher's locker contains a Frisbee, an old Baby Ruth candy bar, prom pictures and a cover of the latest swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated. The candy bar had gotten lost among the books and notebooks, he said.
At William Fleming, Keri Johns has a winter sweater and tissue paper tucked behind her books. "It's messy, but it's not as bad as it was before I cleaned it up," she said.
With the end of the school year fast approaching, students have begun cleaning out their lockers. They're finding things they had forgotten.
Some students stash their book bags in lockers so they don't have to lug them around all day. The lockers become stuffed, especially during the winter when coats are added to the book bags, books, notebooks, cosmetics and other things stored there.
The growing popularity of book bags has caused many students to quit using lockers on a regular basis.
Taheerah Muhammad, a William Fleming junior, said she rarely uses her locker. "I carry everything in my bag so I don't have to go back to my locker at the end of every period," she said.
Bob Roberts, an assistant principal at Fleming, estimates that up to 75 percent of the William Fleming students use book bags so they don't have to go to their lockers after each period.
"I found it more convenient just to use a bag," said David Barker, a Patrick Henry student. "I forgot the combination to my locker - and I don't remember where it is."
Wayne Wright, an assistant principal at Patrick Henry, had no problem recalling the most memorable thing he'd ever seen in a locker.
"We noticed a smell coming from a locker, and it kept getting worse," Wright said. "We opened it and found five or six lunches in paper bags."
Cave Spring students recall a similar incident when rotten apples and bananas were discovered in a locker there.
Elizabeth Lee, Patrick Henry's principal, said students are prohibited from storing drugs, weapons and other illegal substances in their lockers. Otherwise there are no restrictions.
Students are not supposed to have stickers or graffiti on the outside of their lockers. Most comply with the rule. A few write on them with magic marker, and those lockers have to be repainted.
Rye, a ninth-grader at Patrick Henry, said her locker is filled with books, notebooks and other school supplies because she allows a friend to share it.
She said her locker is a kind of sanctuary where she can momentarily escape the pressures of the school day.
Compton said he borrowed the 5-year-old copy of Sports Illustrated for a paper he wrote about gambling in sports.
Patrick Henry High, with an enrollment of about 1,650, has about 1,200 lockers. That means some students have to share.
School officials provide large bags and cans to hold the trash generated when students clean out their lockers.
"We like to clean them out before the students leave so we will have someone to help us with the work," Lee said.
School officials usually find textbooks and library books.
Once the lockers are empty and the students are gone for the summer, school officials have another job.
They have to change all the combinations so students cannot open their old lockers when they return for school in the fall.
by CNB