The boy’s good idea earns him a trip to Washington and a new mountain bike.
By Terry Karkos
Staff Writer

ANDOVER – Having been forewarned, Erich Zurhorst knew he was winning a pretty important award Monday afternoon at the Andover Elementary School.

That’s why the excited, wide-eyed 9-year-old sat with his classmates in the gym listening to Rumford Dr. Dieter Kreckel talk about the SAD 44 school’s participation in Tar Wars, a statewide youth tobacco-free education program and poster contest.

“The winning poster came from this school,” said Kreckel, a Swift River Health Care physician and president of the Maine Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians. “You guys won! You did a great job!”

When he revealed that Zurhorst’s poster won the state competition, the animated student of teacher Roger Sabin’s grades three and four multiage classroom, leaped to his feet to receive his certificate of recognition.

Not only did Zurhorst take first place with his artwork and slogan – Some people think that smoking is cool, but I think that people that don’t smoke rule! – he also won for himself and his family a free trip to Washington, D.C., in July to represent his school and Maine in the national Tar Wars Poster Contest.

But that wasn’t all he won.

In less than a second, his eyes bugged out as excitement turned to shocked disbelief when his physical activity-based prize, a blue 26-inch, 21-speed NEXT Break Point Pro mountain bike, was walked out of its hiding place.

“This is the first time that anything of this level has occurred for him,” said his mother, Mary Zurhorst. “He’s very excited about going to Washington, D.C., and representing his school.”

Each year, Project Northern Oxford Wellness, in conjunction with Swift River Health Care physicians, present Tar Wars, an hour-long program of the American Academy of Family Physicians, to area fourth-graders, said Project NOW program director Sarah Coolidge.

“I’m very impressed with what you remembered about the Tar Wars presentation,” Coolidge told Sabin’s students.

To enter the poster contest, elementary classrooms across the state submitted posters depicting “reasons why they won’t use tobacco” with an attached anti-tobacco slogan, she said. One winning poster from each classroom then went on to the state competition.

Samantha Tibbetts, another SAD 44 youngster who attends Crescent Park School in Bethel, took second place in the statewide competition, while SAD 43’s Virginia Elementary School student Ben Higley of Rumford and Abigail Cyr of Granite Street Elementary School in Millinockett tied for third place.

“This year, the statewide Tar Wars poster contest first-, second- and third-place winners were all part of Project NOW’s region. That’s the first time in the two years that I’ve been here that it’s happened,” Coolidge said.

She attributed that success to a “very strong program in this area and good collaboration with area communities.”

Although young Erich Zurhorst was too shocked to speak about winning the award, his parents, Craig and Mary Zurhorst, did his talking for him.

“I remember him working on the poster at home. The slogan, he felt, was an opinion of his. He didn’t want to put anyone down by it, because he knows how hard it is to quit. He has friends whose parents are trying to quit. He just came up with the idea, found two words that rhymed and ran with it from there,” Mary Zurhorst said.

“He wrote it down, out it came, and there it was,” Craig Zurhorst said.

In addition to learning the hazards of tobacco use in the classroom, both parents have shared personal memories with their son.

“Erich knows what smoking can do. Both of his grandparents (on his father’s side) died from smoking-related diseases before he was born. And he knows as he gets older that there’s going to be pressure on him to do what’s cool, but he’s saying no to that,” Mary Zurhorst said.

“I have to give him a lot of credit for understanding the concepts that smoking is so bad,” her husband added.

Incidentally, winning the Tar Wars poster contest runs in the family. Two years ago, Erich’s 11-year-old brother Carl Zurhorst won Andover Elementary School’s Tar Wars contest.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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