Students vow not to carry guns

Morning News
Oct 23, 2003
By BOBBY TEDDER

Hemingway High School senior Jerrson Davis is one of hundreds of students that signed the Student Pledge Against Gun Violence Thursday morning. John D. Russell (staff)

HEMINGWAY -- Rare occasions indeed, Hemingway High School sophomore Sheena Spain and many others in or near her peer group were given absolute autonomy Thursday to enter into potentially life-altering contracts.

Now, the 16-year-old said, the emphasis shifts to the all-important following through with the terms of the deal, as if their lives depended on it.

In observance of the Day of National Concern and Student Pledge Against Gun Violence, middle and high school students around the Pee Dee pledged to do their part to end gun violence.

"What I'll take away from this cause is motivation to let other kids in my community know guns aren't the way to solve conflicts because they only create more problems," said Spain, an aspiring forensic scientist.

The U.S. Attorney's Office, as part of Project CeaseFire, sponsored South Carolina's participation in the eighth annual initiative.

According to a U.S. Attorney's Office report, a teenager is more likely to die from gunshots than from all natural causes of death combined.

Although optimistic about her compliance with the program and assurance of the proper courses of action to take in real-life situations, Heming-way senior Jessica Douglas said she is not as confident in some of her peers.

"I know how students think. It's more about just getting out of class, but they do listen," she said. "It may actually influence one or two of them, but the majority of them -- if they're hard-headed -- they're not going to listen in the first place."

Former Hemingway High student Scarlett Wilson, now a state prosecutor and special assistant U.S. Attorney, paid her alma mater a visit Thursday.

"I think Hemingway is a great place and I think it's going to take these young folks (pointing to the students) to keep it that way," she said. "It's not going to be us, it's not going to be the teachers or coaches."

Wilson also encouraged students who get wind of an impending gunplay disaster to cut it off at the pass by informing a responsible adult -- using as a reference point Columbine High School (Colo.) students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who on April 20, 1999, in a premeditated act, gunned down 13 classmates before taking their own lives.

"If we can save just one young person from being a statistic, it's worth the effort," said Hemingway High School Principal Ronald Williamson.

Williamson said Thursday's assembly was not the end of gun violence awareness education, pointing to follow-up measures in the immediate future.

As part of the multi-agency law enforcement presence on hand, Hemingway Police Chief Sandy Thompson was among those who waited patiently for the seventh through 12th graders to sign their names on the dotted line of the personal recognizance-styled contracts before being ushered back to class.

"I hope these students got something out of this," Thompson said. "I hope they take the time to read the pledge and stick to it, I really do."

The chief was joined in the high school's gymnasium by officers from the South Carolina Highway Patrol, Williamsburg County Sheriff's Office and South Carolina Department of Natural Resources -- a contingency who could very well likely meet up with those who violate the pledges somewhere down the line.

"It'll save a lot of heartache and a lot of trouble in the years to come," Thompson.

Last year, more than three million students nationwide, nearly 150,000 of those South Carolinians at 224 schools, signed identical pacts last year. This year, the U.S. Attorney's Office had requests for more than 190,000 pledges in 325 schools across the state.