"I shot a 'coon last night!"

"Did you check your traps this morning?"

"There was a rabbit in my snare yesterday!"

No, these aren't lines from a movie about Daniel Boone, but they are common phrases in the upstairs hall. It seems that the junior high boys have been "snared" into the hunting and trapping craze.

It's amazing how dedicated these boys are. The kid who never wanted to get up in the morning now gets up a half hour earlier than usual to check his traps. The boy who despised reading now races through two books a week, as long as they tell him how to hide his traps better. The brother who refused to go out in the cold now bundles up and treks out to find the prime spot to place his traps.

If your haven't noticed these signs, you will soon. You may wander upstairs before school and hear the wild stories of the coyote that got away. You may notice a trapping manual on top of your brother's pile of homework. Who knows, maybe you'll even see a kid with a homemade 'coonskin cap! Either way, it's become obvious that we have a new generation of Daniel Boones in our school.

Stacey Mahony