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Show School and 1 Home by Dr. Daryl J. McCarty Executive Secretary Utah Education Association Many a greying citizen has complained in recent years that kids don't have heroes anymore. We had heroes and heroines in the "good old days," right? Breathes there a middle-aged middle-aged macho who didn't in fantasy ride with the Lone Ranger and his great white horse Silver? Many a pig-tailed princess longed to be the comic strip lady newspaper reporter, Brenda Starr. Then there were the for-real for-real ones-Lindbergh, Tommy Harmon, Amelia Earhart, Carole Ca-role Lombard, Babe Ruth, and Jesse Owens. We idolized those who were long dead, too. They breathed again through books-Orville and Wilbur Wright, Joan of Arc and Leonidas, who, with his 400 Spartans, stood off hordes of invaders with these orders: "Conquer if you can; die if you must." Yes, we had idols. But to assume that today's teenagers don't have people they'd give an arm to be like is incorrect. The Ladies Home Journal last year surveyed youngsters in the fourth through twelfth grades who their heroes were. Apparently, there wasn't any scarcity of answers. Athletes did well in the poll, as might well be expected. 0. J. Simpson was number one. Astronauts also did well. A lot of the kids favored Neil Armstrong. Arm-strong. Ann Landers got plenty plen-ty of votes, and so did Barbara Walters, the million-dollar-a-year newscaster. This year, the Journal asked ask-ed youngsters who, if they could be anyone in the world, would they most like to be? Farrah Fawcett-Majors, her husband Lee Majors, Caroline Car-oline Kennedy, Muhammcd Ali, Twiggy and Robert Red-ford Red-ford scored well. Il was apparent appar-ent that TV watching and movie going determined many of the selections. Some of the choices were eye-openers and others might cause some older tongues to cluck with disapproval. disap-proval. Maybe if you talked with your children about their heroes he-roes and heroines, you might learn something interesting about them. Something you don't know now. |