A Graduation, Complete with Choppers and a Message

Hopatcong students know the perils of drug use. And on Friday they got the papers to prove it.

Durban Avenue's fifth-graders held their Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known as D.A.R.E., graduation, in which two years' worth of education came to a culmination with a talk from Hopatcong police Officer Robert Haffner and a surprise visit.

The Army National Guard dropped in with a pair of black helicopters and spoke to the children about drugs. The kids also got a visit from a Hopatcong ambulance.

"We want to teach kids for the longterm," Durban Avenue Principal Brian Byrne said. "It's not just the three 'Rs.' We try to teach kids to be aware of drugs and how to be careful in dangerous situations."