A brave high-school kid speaks up
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If creating a buzz is rule No. 1 in advertising, then an anonymous Warwick Valley High School sophomore has a bright future.
Set on a backdrop of neat rows of tombstones, a full-page ad in October's The Survey, Warwick Valley High School's monthly student-run newspaper, reads:
"You can't be all that you can be if you're dead. There are other ways to serve your country. There are other ways to get money for college. There are other ways to be all you can be.
THINK ABOUT IT. Before you sign your life away."
The ad was created and paid for by a Warwick student who is a member of the Bruderhof community, a Christian-based communal order in Sugar Loaf that preaches pacifism. And since appearing last week, the ad has sparked controversy in the school district and the community and provoked lively First Amendment debates among students and teachers in the classroom.
The ad was approved by the school's journalism teacher and faculty adviser for The Survey, Denise Markt, and Randy Barbarash, the school's principal.
"I knew the ad would be controversial, but we felt it had a place in our publication as a matter of free speech," Barbarash said. "It has definitely been the source of some lively discussion in the classrooms."
Chris Zimmerman, a member of the Bruderhof community, said the order, while it supports the student's effort and the ad's message, played no role in the ad's creation or placement.
Calling it a political ad with religious ties, some parents, faculty members and students say the ad undercuts those serving in the military and shouldn't have appeared in a tax-funded public school newspape
