CHAPTER 12BULLIES

By Nicole M. Campbell

Staff Writer

SAN DIMAS  In 1971, as a sixth-grader in Kingston, Jamaica, Mark Brown's buck teeth and big ears did not go unnoticed by three female classmates, who teased him mercilessly.

"It was a long time ago, but I still remember the faces," Brown said. And their names.

Brown, who speaks at schools across the country as the representative for the educational fund-raising arm of Reader's Digest magazine, asked Lone Hill Middle School students Monday to think about the effects of bullying.

"You make fun of them, you verbally attack them, you have a good time doing it," Brown said. "But I beg you for a moment to seriously ask yourself one question: How is he or she going to feel 30 years from now when they hear your name?"

From high-profile school shootings to unreported cases of threats and harassment, bullying only recently has received media attention as the problem it always has been.

The National Education Association estimates 160,000 students stay home each day in fear of being intimidated or attacked by a classmate.

"I've been picked on a lot by people, calling me names, cursing at me," said Lone Hill seventh-grader Andrew Peltekci, 12.

Brown, 40, has visited campuses nationwide since 1996, full-time since 1998, as part of the community speaking program for QSP, the fund-raising arm of the Reader's Digest Association, based in Pleasantville, N.Y.

He visited Traweek Middle School in West Covina earlier Monday.

"It definitely had an impact," said Kyle Svoboda, the school's activities director.

Brown said a couple Traweek students approached him after the assembly, sharing their stories of being bullied and asking for his e-mail address to correspond.

"I'm not a counselor or a therapist," said Brown, a father of three. "But I try to direct them to the proper guidance at the school."

Brown, who won Toastmasters International's World Championship of Public Speaking in 1995, urged students to take time to see someone branded as "different" in a new light. It can be done even in a few minutes at lunchtime, he said.

"Don't hang with your friends the whole time," Brown said. "Talk to a kid you know has lunch alone."

Brown's message resonated with 12-year-old Robert Okoth, a sixth-grader at Lone Hill.

"I felt bad for the kids (Brown spoke about who because of bullying) killed themselves," Okoth said. "It really broke my heart."

At the end of his speech, Brown asked the Lone Hill students to get out of their seats if they knew even one person who has been bullied.

Nearly every one of the 400 students stood up.

Nicole M. Campbell can be reached at (626) 962-8811, Ext. 2472, or by e-mail at .