Rensselaer Park DARE Graduation
About 100 fifth-grade students from the Rensselaer Park Elementary School received diplomas during a ceremony at the school on Thursday, January 31, to commemorate their graduation from the 2007-08 school year's D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program.

The program's DARE officer was Deputy Jim Phelps of the Rensselaer County Sheriff's Department.

"I hope when challenges come to you that you'll apply all that we taught to you in this program," Phelps told the students and a large audience of adults at the ceremony in the school's cafeteria.

Four students, Megan Meyer, Seth O'Brien, Alicia Hogan and Brianna Williams, were selected to read essays about their D.A.R.E. education at the program.

Williams, who enjoys singing, emphasized how her singing ability could be jeopardized by drugs or alcohol.

"If someone uses drugs or alcohol they would not be able to sing," she told the audience. "If I smoked my throat would be damaged and I could not sing."

O'Brien, who suffers from asthma, also spoke about what he learned from the program.

"They showed us a healthy lung, and a lung of a smoker, and it was scary," he said. "Asthma is bad enough without adding smoking to it."

Larenz Ray was honored as the program's "Student of the Year," based on his respect, responsibility and being a role model within the program.

The highly acclaimed program gives kids the skills they need to avoid involvement in drugs, smoking, gangs, and violence. Founded in 1983, D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of classroom lessons in 75 percent of our nation's school districts teaching children how to resist peer pressure and live productive drug and violence-free lives.

This was the sixth year of the Rensselaer County Sheriff Department's participation at the Rensselaer Park school. Classes were held once weekly since the start of the 2007-08 school year.

Thursday's audience included a number of local dignitaries including Rensselaer County Executive Kathy Jimino, county legislator Neil Kelleher, Rensselaer County Under sheriff Pat Russo, department sheriff Salvatore Greco, Lansingburgh board of education member P.J. Higgit, Rensselaer County Stop DWI coordinator Charles Wattan, Hudson Valley Community College Respiratory Care Program representatives David Tenike and Patty Highland, Lansingburgh School Superintendent George Goodwin, and Rensselaer Park principal Marcella Fushs.