Columbia digest

Grovetown man burned

A Grovetown man suffered first degree burns during a fire at his home on Old Louisville Road on Wednesday night.

Herman Smith suffered first degree burns to his chest and arms while trying to drive his car out a burning shed, said Jessica Horsley with the Grovetown Department of Public Safety. The fire started the storage shed about 6:36 p.m. in the rear of Smith's property, she said.

The shed contained two trucks, another car, three tractors, several tools and gasoline cans, which all were destroyed in the blaze, Horsley said. The fire started near one of the trucks, and took two hours to extinguish, she said.

County drops D.A.R.E.

G.R.E.A.T. is replacing D.A.R.E. in some Columbia County schools.

The Gang Resistance Eduction and Training program is similar to the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program in that it promotes positive attitudes toward law enforcement and teaches children how to handle conflicts, how to set positive goals, drug resistance and how to avoid gangs and violence, said Jim March, Columbia County Sheriff's Office Captain of Community Services.

Currently, the D.A.R.E. program is taught for 17 weeks - each fifth grade class has it once a week for half a year - in the elementary schools.

But school officials said they thought the D.A.R.E. program had gone stale and was not focused enough on drug education. Also, recent studies on the effectiveness of D.A.R.E. have shown mixed results.