Tar Wars Poster Contestants 'Hit the Hill' in D.C.

Work with us to make America tobacco-free. That's the request 31 grade-school children, who were winners in the Academy's Tar Wars poster contest, made of about 75 federal lawmakers and legislative aides July 18 on Capitol Hill.

"We do this every year, and what's really great about this experience is that the families come. The brothers and sisters (of the poster winners) are here; the winners tell their representatives and senators about their posters and where they got the idea for their posters. It really makes an impression on the families," said Saria Carter-Saccocio, M.D., of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., former resident member of the AAFP Board of Directors and a co-coordinator of Tar Wars in Florida. She gave the keynote address and officiated at the awards banquet for the National Poster Contest.

The children were in Washington, D.C., to visit with their legislators as part of the annual National Poster Contest of Tar Wars, the Academy's tobacco-free education program. The students gave their lawmakers copies of their Tar Wars posters, each of which had taken first place in a state poster contest.

First-place national poster winner Mitchell Nolte, who graduated this spring from fifth grade in Anniston, Ala., described his conversation with Rep. Michael Rogers, R-Ala. Rogers asked Nolte what Tar Wars was, and Nolte said he replied that it was a program for children and was about not using tobacco. Nolte recalled that Rogers said he did not like tobacco or cigarettes and intended to frame his copy of Nolte's poster.

In a meeting with Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., poster contestant Olivia Davis of Tallahassee and her family members said they wanted to put a stop to secondhand smoke, said Carter-Saccocio. Rep. F. Allen Boyd Jr., D-Fla., took Davis and her brother to the floor of Congress and explained the proceedings to them, said Carter-Saccocio, and one senator arranged for a Tar Wars family to be interviewed by Fox News.

The entries submitted to the National Poster Contest are online by state, including posters by Nolte and Davis. Nolte won a trip to Disney World valued at $3,000; Davis, whose poster won honorable mention for fifth place, won $100.

Accompanying the 31 poster contestants as they "hit the Hill" were about 100 family members and state Tar Wars coordinators. The annual meeting for the program's national contest has been in the Washington area for about nine years to incorporate lobbying by the children at the federal level, according to AAFP staff members.