Flight program rewards students who aim high / LJWorld.com

Archive for Wednesday, August 3, 2005

August 3, 2005

Anessea Anderson will take candy or stickers as reward for her hard work. But the 10-year-old said she prefers piloting an airplane.

"Candy, you just eat it and it's gone," said Anessea, a student at Langston Hughes School. "Stickers, you throw them away when you throw out the paper. This is going to be something to remember."

About a dozen Lawrence students are participating in Wright Flight, a national program that rewards kids for setting and achieving goals by taking them into the skies and allowing them to fly an airplane.

Lawrence's program, organized by WRAP, or Working to Recognize Alternative Possibilities, the Bert Nash Community Health Center's in-school counseling program, kicked off Monday and Tuesday at Free State High.

Students take an aviation history course. Then they set a goal for something they want to improve on at school. If they pass the course and reach the goal, they get the chance to fly.

It's a pretty awesome experience for many students, said Dewayne Burgess, an Air Force Reservist and Wright Flight instructor.

Photo by Nick Krug

Wright Flight student Rich Dibenedetto, 12, models fighter pilot gear at Free State High School.

"Nine out of 10 are speechless when they're done," he said.

Burgess, who organizes many such programs across the region, said he sees about a 30 percent success rate. Some kids set goals that simply are too high to be attainable, he said.

The program has run in Lawrence for four years, he said.

The students have until the end of the first school quarter in the fall to meet their goals.

Bradley Harris, Quail Run School student, said he wants to cut down on tardies.

"I've been trying to work on that for a couple of years," he said.