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Show 8.1 The Salt Like Tribune Thursday, November 24, 13S3 Terror of Suicide Stalks Quiet Community of Plano, Texas i 3'- - By Scott Kraft Associated Press Writer The streets of S Plano are smooth and wide, the the homes new and people tanned and confident The schools produce national scholars, the churches draw hundreds on Sunday mornings, the football team collects championship trophies. Plano promotes itself as a warm and sunny paradise. The people are nice, too. Everyone says so. The kids suicides began in Februi ary. Six teen-ageare dead, and this Dallas suburb of 93,000, still an in: fant growing into Texas-size- d bools, . is angry over the national attention it has gotten and afraid its being blamed for the drastic action of a few. Three months after the latest 1, I suicide, Plano worries that more suicides will follow. 0 Call Crisis Line t4 A family therapist is getting more calls from parents who think they see signs of depression in their children. More people from Plano are calling a crisis line in Dallas, reaching out to strangers. And, from the first suicide in February to the sixth 4 in August, police have recorded 15 4 suicide attempts among youngsters. Piano wants to know: what hap4 pened in paradise? Strong, steady growth has brought Piano more than its share of new kids, trying to distinguish themselves in a community built by success. As sophomore Jana Dillon sees it: Unless you want to be put down, you need to succeed at something. i The people who live here are successful or they wouldnt be here. 0 0 q; PLANO, Texas r ? d, I 4s rs c 4 w. ts v , t f William Ramsey, second from right, died in car accident recently. However, rest of From the polo and soccer teams to the poker and bridge clubs, everyone is striving for excellence, said one housewife. That striving, that emphasis on success makes it tough for the community to understand why we have some unhappy kids, said Johnnie Spies, guidance counselor at Plano Senior High School We have many more happy ones than unhappy ones." Six kids were unhappy or theyd be alive. Bruce Carrio, 16, was over the death of a friend in a g accident Glenn Currey, 18, was feeling the pressure of roschool and a mance. Henri DanoL 14, was upset over Bruces suicide. guilt-strick- drag-racin- time-consumi- Steven John Gundlah and Mary Bridget Jacobs, both 17, were depressed because their parents had asked them to stop seeing so much of each other. Scott Difiglia, 17, was distraught over breaking up with his girlfriend. and another the Plano, Texas, teen-agetwo not in the picture, committed suicide. i rs I Why? Why were they upset enough to choose death? Why Plano? The people of Plano are searching for answers. They have considered their success, their growth, their lifestyle, their competitive spirit, their sheltered children and their half the people in town mobility have been here for less than five years. I know its unusuaL But I cannot point to any one thing that went wrong, said Ted Dickey, community leader, funeral director and former justice of the peace. The townspeople are examining themselves. Parents are meeting formally to talk about adolescent problems. Classes on stress are being offered to ninth and 10th graders. Three dozen parents are being trained to help with a phone , crisis line that opens in Plano Dec. 1; 15 volunteered after the August suicides. It makes you want to really listen to your children, and help them find a place in the community, said Ann Stokes, mother of two teenagers and a crisis line volunteer. She moved here two years ago from Tulsa, Okla., when her husband was tram erred. Families New Plano resembles any of a dozen suburban communities in America, molded by young executives transferred to jobs in large nearby cities. Central Expressway, lifeline to downPlanos four-lan- e town Dallas, 20 miles south, is backed up hours each day with commuters. New families arrive every day. high-salari- Half the houses in town were built within the past two years, and the senior high school has 140 new students from 35 states and eight eign countries. Many know what it means to be uprooted. A kid goes home at 4 oclock in Syracuse and the old man says, Pack your grip, son, were going to the end of the world Plano, Texas. He ends up in our community grieving, Dickey said. But this is hardly the end of the world. In many ways, Plano is the Sun Belts own Eden. Shopping malls beckon from a dozen street corners. The crime rate is lower than that of any Texas town half its size. Hundreds of new with wet bars, $160,000 homes line game rooms and solariums up neatly in neighborhoods enclosed brick walls. by Only a decade ago, Plano was a settlement of genteel ranches and 3.000 people. Now with almost 100.000 people, it is growing at the rate of 10,000 a year, mostly to the west, where new streets crisscross vacant fields, the gndwork for a city that expects to be as big as Fort Worth m two decades. Certainly there are no obstructions to growth on this flat, featureless landscape. Plano was named for its topography on the belief that piano meant plains in Spanish. Actually, it means nothing. As large as it is becoming, Plano remains a family place. The aver PIER r s child more age household has one than the national average. New schools have opened in eight of the ribpast 10 years. Next year three buildnew more at cut be will bons ings. The senior high school, sitting on acres, has an indoor swimming pool a greenhouse and a community Of day care center run by students. seits 2,300 students, all juniors and niors, 96 percent are white. The school boasts the biggest graduating class m the state. Theyre Champions On the gridiron, the Plano Wildcats are conquerors. They lost only one game last year and won the district football title for the sixth time in seven years. The school has its stadium, on artifiown 16,000-secial turf with an electronic score-boarMost games are sellouts. Plano s Standard of Excellence, a motto written in red on the cover of the 1983 yearbook, is evident in the classroom and the schools 60 clubs. Seventy percent of the graduates go to college There were 15 National Merit Scholarship finalists among last years seniors. 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