wins national poster contest
A Mitchell County youth
has won first place in a national contest to promote radon education.
Adam Waldroup of Spruce Pine learned about the contest through a radon
education program in his school, which was presented by N.C.
Cooperative Extension in Mitchell County.
Waldroup visited Washington,
D.C., in January to take the top prize in the National Radon Poster
Contest. There he met with Environmental
Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and Sen.
John Edwards. Whitman unveiled Waldroup’s winning poster.
The poster will be printed
and distributed nationally to partners in state radon programs. In North
Carolina, Cooperative Extension centers in all 100 counties and the
Cherokee Reservation will distribute copies of Waldroup’s poster.
Waldroup is a sixth grader
at Harris Middle School. His was one of 105 posters submitted by Mitchell
County sixth graders. Mitchell County is a Zone 1 county, meaning that
radon is a major indoor environmental concern in the area.
Radon is a colorless, odorless
gas that can become trapped in a home, causing health problems for those
living there. Exposure to radon is the second leading cause of lung
cancer in the United States, behind smoking. It is estimated that radon
causes 15,000 to 22,000 deaths per year.
Waldroup was honored Jan.
23 in an assembly at his school. State Rep. Phillip Frye presented Waldroup
with letters of congratulations from Gov. Mike Easley and Dr. Jon Ort,
director of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service.
The poster contest was sponsored
by Montana State University, the
EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In North Carolina schools, the contest was made possible by a grant
from the Conference of Radiation Control
Program Directors (CRCPD). Cooperative Extension provides radon
education in schools so the message will be passed on to parents through
their children, said Susan Pope, Extension radon educator, based at
N.C. State University.
—Natalie
Hampton
