FROM DIRTY MOVIES TO DONAHUE : TELEVISION COMES TO THE BACKWOODS

Cable is bringing more than just television to the backwoods, as evidenced by the sexually explicit note recently passed from one second-grader to another at the local elementary school.

“On the one hand, I was surprised by the level of sexual sophistication; on the other, I was appalled by what I was reading,” said Richard Petras, principal at Barracksville Elementary School.

“When I asked the little girl about it, she immediately bragged that her parents let her watch dirty movies at home all the time.”

Such events are becoming more common in rural areas, Petras said, due to an unprecedented amount of information arriving via cable TV and home satellite dishes.

It was only last September that cable reached Katy, a town of 170 houses nestled in a range of mountains in north-central West Virginia.

“Now, all but three houses have cable and all of them have some form of pay television,” said Burtrum (Boots) Cousins, general manager of Group W Cable in nearby Fairmont, adding that nothing racier than HBO and Showtime is offered.

“You’ve got to understand that they never had television and they were starved for it,” Cousins said. “So they got excited and they’re buying everything I’ve got.”

And teachers are beginning to notice a difference.

“Students who come from homes with no guidance frequently make wrong choices,” Petras said. “In many cases, they’re doing exactly what they see on television in real life.”

Some have difficulty in separating reality from fantasy, he said.

“Often, these choices are not healthy, emotionally or physically,” Petras said. “Myself, as principal, and our guidance counselor have our hands full with some very serious problems.”

A first-grade teacher, Sharon Hibbs, said the children had become more verbal, more precocious, and better able to understand spoken words.

“But I also get a lot of kids watching HBO or Showtime and I get asked a lot of questions of a sexual nature,” she said.

At North Marion High School, a group of students from Katy said cable television hasn’t changed their lives--although one said her family sits in front of the tube from dawn to bedtime and fights constantly over what to watch.

“I’m afraid that this summer, they’ll all be inside watching television,” said Christie Hamilton.

Some fear that television is eliminating regional differences.

“I just moved here from Louisiana and I was surprised to find the same fads, the same slang, the same values as back home,” said high school teacher Mary Kuretza. “Television is giving these kids a national base.

“I moved from a city of over 100,000 to a town of 800, and I found that the kids are just about as street-smart.”

Gary Boord, a 20-year teacher, said kids are now so used to noise from television and radio that they say they have difficulty concentrating in quiet classrooms.

“Their attention span is becoming so short that I have trouble getting kids to concentrate on their homework for more than 20 minutes,” added Linda King, a math teacher.

Dr. Heather Hudson, a communications professor at the University of Texas, said the results aren’t all negative.

“Children seem to have a better grasp of the world around them in some ways and a familiarity with language that they didn’t have before,” she said. “But some researchers also feel they become more devoid of creativity.”

Cousins, however, said he had seen little or no change.

“I don’t think cable television has had any impact at all on Fairmont,” he said.

“But I do have a wife who continually surprises me with the things she knows,” he added. “I ask her how she could possibly have learned something if she never gets out of the house, and she tells me she picked it up from the Phil Donahue show.”