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Louisiana Tar Wars Winner, Emilee Leger, Receives Honorable Mention at the National Tar Wars Poster Contest!
Emilee Leger, Louisiana’s Tar Wars Poster Contest winner, received Honorable Mention at the 2008 Tar Wars National Conference in Washington, D.C. during a ceremony held on Monday, July 21st. Emilee is a fifth grade student from Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Youngsville, Louisiana. Mrs. Leger said, “The Tar Wars Conference was great. Emilee had a wonderful time, as did all of us. Thank you again for the opportunity to attend the conference. It was a once in a lifetime trip for her and one she will never forget”. Emilee also had a chance to meet with Senator Vitter and was given a capitol tour by a staff member in Senator Landreau's office.
This year marked the 20th anniversary of Tar Wars, a tobacco-free education program
administered by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) that increases
students’ awareness of attitudes about tobacco use and the effects of tobacco on the body. Since it was established in 1988, Tar Wars has reached more than 8 million children with its tobacco-free message.
The Tar Wars program culminates with its annual poster contest, which encourages
children to create posters that emphasize the positive aspects of not using tobacco.
Zach Heasley, a fifth-grader from Paden City, W.Va., was named the 2008 Tar Wars national poster contest winner and was awarded a family trip to Disney World worth up to $3,000. In addition to Heasley, three runners-up, six honorable mentions including Louisiana’s Emilee Leger and the state-level poster contest winners were recognized at the awards ceremony. All state winners in attendance received a prize packet and a savings bond.
The winning posters were chosen from 39 entries, all winners of state-level Tar Wars
poster contests. Posters were judged on their artistry, creativity, originality and their
ability to communicate a clear and positive message about being tobacco-free.
Digital images of all winning posters can be downloaded from www.tarwars.org. Poster artwork is also displayed in schools and is reproduced on promotional items available at www.tarwars.org.
In addition to recognizing poster contest winners, the Tar Wars National Conference
allowed students to voice their opinions about tobacco use and tobacco legislation to their congressional leaders during visits to Capitol Hill.
Tar Wars is the only youth tobacco education program offered at this time by a medical specialty organization in the United States and reaches approximately 500,000 students annually. Thousands of Family Physicians and health care leaders across the country present the Tar Wars message to fourth and fifth grade students in their local schools every year. This national initiative of the AAFP is designed to teach kids about the short term, image-based consequences of tobacco use, the costs associated with using tobacco products and the advertising techniques used by the tobacco industry to market its products to youth.
Tar Wars was developed in 1988 by Jeff Cain, M.D., and Glenna Pember of the Hall of Life at the Denver Museum of Natural History and Doctors Ought to Care (DOC). Cain said the intention of the program was to counteract the messages created in tobacco advertising by using some of the industry’s own tactics.
“While the tobacco industry uses advertising to manipulate potential users by making
smoking appear sexy, glamorous and cool, Tar Wars uses images to emphasize short-term consequences of tobacco use to show why not smoking is actually sexy, glamorous and cool,” Cain said.
Cain said that most of the anti-smoking messages at the time were focused on stressing the long-term health effects, and while that message is important, he said it is not necessarily the most effective with young people. Children tend to form their views about tobacco use between the ages of 12 and 14, an age when Cain said they are much more concerned with image and what happens in their immediate lives.
In 1993, a national training conference was held to spread the Tar Wars program across the United States and the AAFP endorsed Tar Wars as a national program. With representation from throughout the United States, a national board was formed the same year to help expand the program’s effectiveness, goals, and vision.
“We wanted people running it in each state to see it as their own program. True success is not accomplished by what you do with your own hands, it’s what lives on in the work and lives of others,” Cain said.
The AAFP has overseen the program since 1997 and has promoted Tar Wars to AAFP members locally, nationally, and internationally. Tar Wars has been presented in all 50 states as well as in Australia, Bangladesh, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Nepal, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.
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