Dole does most of the talking in visit to N.H. school

By Jill Zuckman, Globe Staff, May 4, 1999

PEMBROKE, N.H. -- Elizabeth Dole walked through the halls of Pembroke Academy yesterday, attracting squeals and shrieks as well as puzzlement from the public high school students unclear on who she was or why she was there.

She was visiting in hopes of listening to the concerns of students -- though, as it turned out, few were in a talking mood.

She also continued her apparent bid to position herself as the comparative moderate in the 11-person Republican field. The day after Dole, at a GOP candidates event, took on the gun lobby in the heart of gun-friendly New Hampshire, she reiterated her opposition to assault weapons and armor-piercing bullets. She also continued to insist that talk of a constitutional amendment to ban abortions "is a dead end" for the GOP, and unlike many Republican politicians and voters, she insisted that the United States must stick with the NATO mission in Kosovo and win the war.

Entering Roy Annis's history class, the former executive director of the Red Cross said she had come to talk about education and public service with his 20 students. In fact, Dole had hoped to listen to the students, and said so repeatedly. But the students were reticent; some rolled their eyes at the awkwardness of the session.

Annis tried to help Dole out, asking his students whether any of them ever felt in danger at school. The answer was no. So Annis asked what they would do to improve their school.

Melissa Tetrault, 17, who had been looking on with disdain, decided to speak up. "I would get a lot more caring teachers who actually cared about what they're teaching," she said. "We have some of them in the school but not all of them care."

Dole quickly praised teachers as the true heroes in society, but she acknowledged that Tetrault had a point.

"I do think there are some teachers who are not well prepared and not qualified to be in the classroom and we've got to change that, don't we," she said. Dole said there needs to be more rigorous teacher training programs and a more rigorous certification process in order to provide students with better teachers.

When Annis told Dole that his students had held a car wash and raised $1,000 for the refugees from Kosovo, Jodi Cowger, 17, raised her hand. She asked Dole why the United States would involve itself in the Balkans, but not elsewhere.

"Are you thinking of Rwanda?" Dole asked, as Cowger nodded her head.

Dole recounted her visit to the Congo to see the Rwandan refugees when she ran the Red Cross. "I was literally stepping over dead bodies," she said, noting that the children were traumatized from having seen their parents hacked to death.

"I think we probably should have intervened," Dole said of the civil war in Rwanda. She also underscored her position on Kosovo. "We've got to win the war and win it absolutely."

Shifting gears, Dole asked the class, "What about drugs?"

"Tell me how it starts and what you feel can be done to stop it," she said. "Obviously, a lot of young lives are being ruined . . . I feel we need to speak out that drugs aren't cool, they kill, they ruin your mind. How are we going to stop this? How do you feel about it?"

Dole's soliloquy, however, was met with silence and a few smirks.

As Dole left the class, she stopped to shake hands with each of the students. Tetrault told a reporter she thought the session was pointless. "It's not real, it's not realistic at all," she said, just as Dole stopped to shake her hand.

Cowger, however, had a different view of the experience.

"I think she's awesome. She seems sincere and smart," Cowger said. "I think she's genuine. I was impressed."