ERIK SANZENBACH / L’Observateur / December 30, 1999

LUTCHER – Fifth-graders at LaPlace Elementary School recently graduated with honors from a 16-week course on Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E. For the past 16 weeks, D.A.R.E. officer and instructor Lt. Mike Hoover ofthe St. John Sheriff’s Office has been instructing the fifth-grade classesof Kathy Cambre, Janelle Williams, Denise Maggiore and Linda Roundtree every Tuesday afternoon on the dangers of drug abuse and how to resist drug use.

All the students from the four fifth-grade classes received diplomas from Hoover for participating in the anti-drug course.

Elton Oubre, supervisor of Safe and Drug-Free Schools for the St. JohnParish School Board, was present at the ceremony and reminded all the children “not to be influenced by peer pressure.”The fifth-graders were required to write an essay about the dangers of drugs. Oubre and Hoover then judged the essays and the winners were givenmedals by Hoover.

Oubre said, “All the essays were so good that we had a hard time judging who was best.”The winning essays were written by Anjonie Breaud, Dominique Tamboruo, Laura Evans, Hazel Griffith, Catie Anthony, Aimee Dufresne, Gregory Cambell, Crichelle Keller and Jennifer St. Germain.Hoover told all the students to remember and “do the right thing.”After the ceremony, everybody enjoyed a cake specially made for the occasion.

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