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Wake Forest goes Retro
Wake Weekly - April 30, 2009
The Official DARE Safety Buddy - Retro Bill with a rubber chicken
Wake Forest -You know you’ve got something good going when you’re the principal of a school whose kids stand up and cheer, fists pumping the air, at the mention of your name.
Heritage Elementary Principal George Risinger’s popularity notwithstanding, it was D.A.R.E. program speaker Bill Russ, a.k.a. Retro Bill, who got the kids on their feet.
The Hollywood actor’s rousing talk about respect and positive reinforcement engaged students in grades 3-5 at Heritage and later the same-age students at Wake Forest Elementary last Thursday.
He told them how to stand up to bullies, how to lessen their personal troubles, how to overcome fear. And he did it in a way that had them laughing and cheering at every turn.
“I was absolutely impressed with his show and the response from the students and staff,” says Wake Forest police D.A.R.E. officer Scott Graham. “At both schools, the kids enjoyed his humor and his ability to teach values and character to the kids, such as not bullying and making good decisions about alcohol and drugs.”
The booking cost about $1,800 including airfare, room and meals and both school appearances, Graham said. The money was paid out of funds raised at the D.A.R.E. carnival.
“Overall, as a police officer, to me to be able to do something that kids think is fun and entertaining but also learn valuable morals and values — I think that’s really what true education is,” Graham says. “Retro Bill says the challenge is to get them to walk away a better person and that’s what he did. He really cares for kids.”
There’s the rubber chicken prop which Bill used to pull out of his backpack when kids would make fun of him to show he’s no chicken.
There’s the Hula Hoop his grandmother nailed to the wall to remind the youngsters that when times are tough, things will eventually come full circle again.
And then there are the polka-dotted suitcases. When Bill was just a boy, math was so difficult a subject, he began to hate going to school. Each passing day the fear of math studies grew on him, until he felt like he was carrying a heavy suitcase on his back.
That is, until he told a teacher about it, who helped him learn just enough to lessen the load — illustrated by Bill throwing down the suitcase (a travel bag) and snapping out its handle.
At one point, Bill had cheery twin sisters, both physically disabled, up at the stage with him to ask how they deal with down times. One sister, who is in a wheelchair, said, “Never let anything get you down.”
“Never?” asked Bill.
“Never.”
Plus, the girls said, they look forward to coming home to their pet and their loving family every day. “If you have a good family, you have a good time and feel well,” they said.
Thinking on his feet, Bill used that to talk about kids whose family life isn’t so great, whose parents are divorced. He pointed out they always have their extended family — their teachers — to turn to.
Later, he had all the teachers in the room stand up, along with Wake Forest Police Chief Greg Harrington, Deputy Chief Jeff Leonard, Graham and Principal Risinger. These people, he told the kids, along with parents and school volunteers, are “always standing up for you.”
And all his teachings about respecting one another and standing up for oneself segue neatly into Graham’s week-in and week-out D.A.R.E. message as well.
“My job is to make you think before someone makes you smoke, before someone makes you drink, before someone makes you cheat on a test,” Bill says.
His entire act, the jokes, the screwed-up faces, the poofed-up Elivs-like hair, jets of silly string, rubber chickens and trading cards, are designed to keep children focused on him while he discusses serious subjects.
But it’s really no act at all — Bill struggled through many hardships himself as a child. Once, while in Scouts, another boy tried to drown him, something that took him decades to admit. When he looks into the faces of troubled kids, he finds it easy to empathize.
“I can see they’ve been picked on and I can see in their faces they’ve been uplifted,” he says. “I’ve been the kid who had buck teeth and braces, the last kid picked on the basketball team. It’s just an honor for me. I feel this is my calling.”
Following the “show” at Heritage, one well-spoken girl came up to Bill and said her parents divorced and both had remarried quickly, which had obviously been very hard for her.
But now, she told him, “I feel as if I can put my suitcase down.”
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