Thursday, September 16, 1999
Teens meet at dawn to pray
BY CHRISTINE WOLFF
The Cincinnati Enquirer
With a school flagpole as their steeple and a grassy area their church, students focused on heaven at dawn Wednesday.
Around them, as the sun rose and darkness faded, the Walnut Hills High School campus noisily came to life with the sound of cars and voices. From the circle of about 60 students holding hands around the flagpole came the murmur of quiet prayers.
“Thank you, Lord, that we can gather at a public school. ... Let people know not to be afraid to stand and pray at the flagpole, even if they are alone,” prayed Rebecca Morelock, 17, a Walnut Hills senior.
They gathered for the 10th annual “See You At The Pole,” an event organizers call the National Day of Student Prayer. An estimated 6,433 students at 112 Tristate schools participated, according to reports called in to WAKW, a Christian music radio station in College Hill.
Memories of violence in schools around the nation hovered at Wednesday's event, as students' prayers touched on security.
“Keep us safe, happy and healthy. Watch over us in school every day,” a young girl prayed. “Continue to keep us in your hands, the safest hands we know.”
Last year, about 2.5 million students participated. National numbers for Wednesday were not available; organizers expected them to be up from last year in the wake of the mass murder in April at Colorado's Columbine High School.
“A lot of schools are praying that we can reach out to people in distress before something happens like the tragedy at Columbine,” said Rachel Choate, 17, a Walnut Hills senior from Clifton.
Two hundred students met Wednesday at the pole at Kentucky's Boone County High School; about 110 students gathered at Mason High School; at Lakota East High, 100; Milford High, 150; Ryle High, in Union, Ky., 140; Amelia High School, 105; Talawanda Middle School, 37, and at Finneytown High School in Spring field Township, 40.
“See You At The Pole,” began in 1990 with a church youth group in Burleson, Texas, and is held annually before classes — the suggested hour is 7 a.m. local time — on the third Wednesday in September.
Students voluntarily gather before classes to pray, using the flagpole as a central place. It's legal; U.S. Supreme Court decisions between 1962 and 1992 say schools can't sponsor prayer, but they must — under the federal Freedom of Access Law — allow student religious groups to meet on campus.
At Boone County High, the large prayer group formed a double circle around the flagpole.
“We were praying for the students, for teachers, and safety for schools and for wisdom for administrators,” said Jarrett “Bubba” Wilmhoff, 16, of Florence.
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