Civics Is Sweet for SW Students

Class Lobbies to Make the Cherry the City's Official Fruit

At the start of the school year, more than half of the kids in Terry Bunton's special-needs class at Bowen Elementary School in Southwest Washington had never even tasted a cherry.

Cherry-flavored Jolly Ranchers. Cherry ice cream. Cherry cola. That was about it.

But the 12 students, ages 9 to 13, have spent the past eight months championing the cherry to make it the official fruit of the nation's capital.

They set up a Web site, makethecherryofficial.com . They sent letters to Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D). They testified before the council, the District's school board and an Advisory Neighborhood Commission. They even had silkscreened T-shirts made, emblazoned with a cherry drawn by class artist Anthony Harris, 9, and the school motto, "We Can and We Will."

And last week, they got some results at the John A. Wilson Building. Cropp introduced a bill, "The Official Fruit Act of 2006," that would give the cherry the status these pint-size lobbyists want. The full council is scheduled to vote on the legislation June 6.

The effort has been a civics lesson for children who can see the U.S. Capitol from their third-floor classroom: Some didn't know what it was at the start of the year. Some thought that Southwest, the school's quadrant, was the name of their city.

"I wanted them to see more of the world," said Bunton, 36, a former medical equipment salesman who became a teacher two years ago. "They are going to need to effect change for the rest of their lives. The cherries are the least of their problems."

Cropp said she was compelled to take up their cause because the students showed such enthusiasm. "These were special-needs children who focused on wanting to be involved in the District of Columbia. They actually came down and testified. You've got to do everything you can to push them," she said.

Bunton gave them a little nudge in the fall after they read about fourth-grade students at an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla., who successfully lobbied the state legislature a year ago to designate the orange the state's official fruit.

"I said, 'What do y'all think the fruit should be?' " Bunton recalled.

"The apple," shouted Sheldon McFadden, 11.

Sheldon thought it was a natural choice. After all, there was the supposed fable about George Washington's childhood lesson in honesty. He cut down the "apple tree," Sheldon insisted.