Prince George's County Notebook

Sugar Ray Leonard is smaller and slighter than one might expect of one of the world's boxing greats. But at 53, the former welterweight champ looked like a picture of success, sharp in a dark tailored suit and a floral-print tie as he stepped out of a Lexus at Charles Carroll Middle School in New Carrollton.

He was in town for the Parkdale High School graduation, an event that had sentimental value for Leonard, who graduated from Parkdale in 1973. But first, he was visiting the middle school as part of a campaign to get famous Prince George's County alumni to speak about the value of education. (Other notable alumni include Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Richard R. Arnold II, an astronaut, and Kevin Merida, The Washington Post's assistant managing editor for national news.)

The teenagers waiting inside the middle school for Leonard couldn't remember the boxer's great fights with Roberto Duran, Thomas "Hitman" Hearns and Marvin Hagler, which took place long before they were born. But the kids, egged on by adults who remembered the boxer's glory days, gave him a rapturous welcome as he stepped through the door, shaking hands, signing autographs and posing for pictures.

Leonard was ushered into a classroom, where a group of students was waiting to question him.

"What do you consider was your biggest challenge as a boxer?" a boy asked.

"It was really trying to separate myself from the other boxers," Leonard said. "Boxing's about hitting the other guy. I wanted to be in a position that was looked upon as special. Corporate America looked at me as someone they could use for their products."

Another student asked: "What inspired you to start boxing?"

"The reason I started boxing was because my big brothers beat me up for no reason," he replied. "It also gave me the skills to be sociable and confident."

As the questions kept coming, Leonard kept pitching to the students the importance of going to school.

"I have four kids myself," Leonard told reporters later. "I just wanted to stress the importance of education. . . . Once you leave this ground, this school, there's a rude awakening out there."

Asked what he thought of the boxing scene today, Leonard mourned the sport's decline: "Back when I was competing, there were tons of superstars, or personalities, household names," he said. "Champions were champions." Then he got back on message.

"I think we all are fighters," he said. "The principles I used to become a champion, I think they're applicable in life."

Student School Board Member Elected to Rare Second Term

The student member of the Prince George's County Board of Education surpassed his adult peers in one notable measure last week: He was elected to a second term.

That's not quite fair to the nine adult school board members, who serve four-year terms and don't have to run for reelection until next year. But Edward Burroughs III, a junior at Crossland High School in Temple Hills, also makes history by being the first student to serve for two years on the Board of Education, according to a schools spokeswoman.

Often the student school board member is a senior, but Burroughs, being a junior, was able to run for reelection at the meeting of the Prince George's Regional Association of Student Governments on May 27.

Burroughs has spoken his mind freely during his term, occasionally critiquing school system policy from the students' perspective. When the board was discussing its bug-riddled new electronic grading system, SchoolMax, Burroughs pointed out a Facebook page opposed to the system that had thousands of members. He has also taken administrators to task for suspending truant students, a practice he considers counterproductive to keeping students in school.

Burroughs said his proudest achievement has been reforming the school system's grading policy, changing how final grades are calculated. He also was a spokesman for a program to encourage students to take the High School Assessment exams, a set of tests in algebra, English, biology and government that many of his peers had trouble passing.

Despite his activity in the political sphere, Burroughs has stayed on top of his schoolwork, achieving a 3.8 grade-point average.

"Next school year, I plan to work on dual enrollment, so that students who have just a few credits left in high school can get a jump on higher education by simultaneously attending community college," he said in a statement. "I also want to promote our online Advanced Placement courses to increase equity for students who have limited access to AP courses at their school."

'Big G' From 'The Wire' Steps Up To Help County Battle Truancy

Trouble with truancy remains in the crosshairs of administrators as the school year wraps up, with the Prince George's County Department of Family Services the latest agency to launch a campaign against cutting classes.

The problem is serious in Prince George's, where 19 out of 27 high schools have a truancy rate greater than 10 percent, the department said. About 6,000 county students are considered "habitual truants." The statistics were the reason behind an earlier anti-truancy campaign, which was launched at the behest of the Board of Education this school year.

The weapons remain posters, fliers and radio ads, but the new campaign is expected to get a boost from Anwan "Big G" Glover, a go-go band leader and actor in HBO's gritty crime drama "The Wire," in which he played Slim Charles, an enforcer for one of Baltimore's drug gangs. Glover has taken a larger role in public causes since the fatal shooting in Columbia Heights of his brother Tayon in 2007, after which he called for an end to revenge shootings.

The Family Services department is hosting a "Strengthening Youth and Families" conference at Prince George's Community College, which began Tuesday and wraps up today. People seeking more information about the campaign may call the Department of Family Services at 301-265-8446.