Schools promoted drug-free activities and drug prevention duringlast week’s Red Ribbon Week events.

Students at each county school were asked to participate indifferent activities each day to promote drug awareness during thenational program.

“These activities allow us to get our message out each day tostudents. The activities are based around their classroomactivities. We do it differently every year to keep it fresh,” saidConnie Board, a nurse at Lipsey Middle School who helped organizethis year’s events there.”

At Lipsey, students were asked to write short essays Monday onwhy they would remain drug-free.

“We had wonderful essays,” Board said.

The top 31 essays were selected and five students get to readtheir essay on the intercom each morning as a special treat, shesaid.

Tuesday was the “Shade Out Drugs” Contest. Students were askedto wear sunglasses and winners were chosen for the most outlandishor a cute pair of sunglasses.

Other activities during the week at Lipsey included a “Wear Red”day and the creation of a workbook about drug awareness.

“They’ll actually have two weeks of activity with the activitybook,” Board said.

At Brookhaven Elementary School a “Pennies for Patients” wasincorporated into the Red Ribbon Week activities.

“It’s really a penny war – boys against girls,” said RosalynBrown, a BES counselor who supervised the week’s programs.

The girls and boys compete against each other to collect themost pennies. To make it more challenging, Brown said, students areencouraged to put nickels, dimes and quarters in each other’s jarin order to get the same amount of pennies subtracted from thetotal count.

The money collected will be donated to the Pennies for PatientsLeukemia/Lymphoma Foundation of Mississippi. The winners receive afree popcorn party.

Brown said a similar event last year raised $800.

“This year I think we’re going to top it,” she said.

Each class also created a drug-free banner. The banners wereposted on the wall and used during the annual “Drug-Free Red RibbonParade” Friday to wrap-up the week-long program.

Other schools in the county held programs of their ownthroughout the week.