DATE: Friday, November 28, 1997             TAG: 9711270839

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Matthew Bowers

LENGTH: 25 lines

EYES AND EARS

SUFFOLK

Weather played havoc with the construction schedule a year ago of the last new school the city built, Northern Shores Elementary. Result: Schoolkids trudging into an incomplete building and workers on the grounds well into the fall.

No one - particularly Superintendent Joyce H. Trump - wants a repeat with the next new school, Mack Benn Jr. Elementary. Trump threw down a challenge for designers and builders at last month's formal groundbreaking, promising attendees that the facility would be completed on time, ``El Nino or no El Nino.'' She referred to the unusual Pacific Ocean weather pattern blamed for disrupting climates across the country.

Trump's challenge gave workers at Benn Elementary a rallying cry, one that made its way onto handwritten signs in construction trailers at the Nansemond Parkway site:

``El Nino is no excuse.''

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