One should always give credit where credit is due. Of the many standards taught to me by my father, this was indeed one of the most important ones. I need to take this opportunity and do just that.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or DARE, program is yesterday’s news. The idea of a police officer in a school, regardless of the grade, is as common as cell phones in today’s world. No matter if the officer is there to teach a class or to raise the school’s safety meter, or perhaps both, it’s happening everywhere.

In spite of the fact that the DARE curriculum has been rewritten and updated numerous times by college professors and educators, it rarely makes the news these days. That is understandable and typical of any program.

While several darts have been hurled at DARE over the years, by whomever for whatever, it still stands today as the largest drug education program on the planet. No drug education program to date has had the longevity and stamina that DARE has had. Contrary to what you might have heard or seen on the Internet, the program does do some very positive things for children and some of that should be talked about and brought to the taxpayers’ attention.

As one who has taught the DARE program for 17 years, there is a particular lesson that I have always loved and still find refreshing each and every year. There is one lesson that has never changed since the program was originally written in 1983. It is this one lesson that needs to be talked about a lot.

Simply called the “Role Model” lesson, it involves local high school teens coming into fifth-grade classrooms and answering any and all questions put to them by the elementary-age students. Obviously, the majority of the questions are centered on drugs and drug abuse. The high school teens volunteer to come into the classrooms and obviously you want the right teen for this task.

In the current DARE curriculum there is a lot of emphasis on decision-making skills and the important role that friends play in one’s life, especially in those high school years. A lot of time in the DARE class is devoted to discussing the fact that there are those teens who simply do not do drugs, steal or commit acts of violence and hurt others. There are those teens who are involved in sports, clubs and groups which are available in schools. There are those teens who value a solid education and have set their sights on higher education.

While we live in a world that glorifies the deviant side of life entirely too much for our children, we need good “Role Models” for them to break this mind-set. Some of those important role models for our young kids are our own older kids.

Bangor High School should be proud of the students who came to the DARE classes recently at Fairmount School. These teens were indeed positive. These teens stressed the importance of a good, solid education and of being involved. The importance of not using drugs. The importance of choosing appropriate friends. The importance of being yourself and being proud to be just that.

This Role Model lesson is real. This is no movie and there is no script. There is no coaching by me as to what to say and what not to say. This is not MTV’s “Real World.” Questions came at these high-schoolers from all angles. Questions ranged from drugs and peer pressure to those about who the meanest teachers are that they’ve had in high school. And the kids answered them all.

These sincere, honest kids were proud of the stand they have taken and they had no fears in sharing that with anyone, answering each and every question as openly as they could. They reflected back over their school years and the struggles they went through to get where they are today, as they answered the fifth-graders. As they talked, they commented that while many of their choices and decisions had been positive, there were also those that had not been as good, but that they used these errors in judgment as lessons to better themselves.

Bangor High School can also be proud that every senior Role Model was college bound. Almost all of them had already been accepted and were all set to go. And we are talking about some of the most prestigious schools in America. Bottom line: You don’t get to these schools by being a druggie. They have done it and done it without the use of drugs, violence and partying. Sometimes we need to hear about these kids in the media. Sometimes we need to put them in the news. Sometimes we need to wave a flag for these teens. Sometimes we need to let them know that we are very proud of them.

I personally want to thank Jolene Belanger, Tony Gerow, Ilyse Angst, Hannah Bennett, Scott Sherman, Jessica Cust, Sean Sevey, Alex Porter, Jocelyn Christiansen, Andy Mead, Alex Gallant, Becky Murdy, James Rogers, Ingrid Alquist, Casey Quaglia, Emily Heath, Kendra Moores, Samantha Shulman, Eric Pelletier, Allie Clukey, Rebecca Reagan and Mark Socoby for taking time out of their busy lives and talking to some children. Their personal stand today against drugs is admirable but their courage to take that message out in public to young kids is both encouraging and refreshing.

Everyone knows about it when teens make bad choices and things happen, but every now and then we need to let people know when teens, like all of these Role Models, have made the right choices and that we are proud of them.

Officer Daniel Frazell is the community relations officer of the Bangor Police Department.