OXNARD : Boy’s Pro-School Ad Wins Contest

At age 12, Casey Crowl of Oxnard has already decided he wants to be a professional football player. But not until he graduates from college.

A job playing football “only lasts so long,” said Casey, an honor student at Fremont Intermediate School.

Casey had graduation in mind when he designed an advertisement to persuade students to stay in school. His entry, one of 3,000 submitted from the United States and Canada, was chosen by a panel of 12 judges in a contest advertised in Scholastic Action Magazine.

The ad will appear on the back page of a future issue of Scholastic Action and will also be made into a poster that will be circulated through the National Dropout Prevention Center of Clemson, S.C.

When asked how he feels about the recognition, Casey smiled, flashing his braces.

“It’s pretty special, I guess,” he said. “Pretty cool.”

The $500 savings bond he won may someday help him buy a car, Casey said. Or he might use it to buy some clothes, or put it in a savings account, he said.

When the poster comes out, it will show a neon mortarboard hat, the traditional headgear for high school and college graduates at commencement ceremonies. The slogan reads: “This hat never goes out of style. Be cool. Stay in school.”

He came up with the winning message after discarding his first effort, which was “This hat will go with any suit.”

“It just didn’t sound right,” Casey said. “Style is really popular with kids.” Education, Casey said, “runs through my family.” His mother holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees. His maternal grandfather, who returned to college at 40, has obtained master’s and law degrees.

“The man has kind of taught it in all of us,” said Casey’s mother, Linda Crowl, 44, a business professor at Oxnard College. She said her brother and sister also hold master’s degrees.

All this schooling makes him feel confident, Casey said.

“If my family can do it, then I can get a good education,” he said.

His father, who at 45 has been trying to earn an associate’s degree for five years, has encouraged him to stay in school.

“You shouldn’t do what I did,” Casey said his father tells him.

The New York-based Scholastic Action Magazine, which has a circulation of 200,000, covers topics such as teen-age pregnancy, alcoholism, gangs, health and fitness.

The three contest runners-up are from Canada, Indiana and Virginia.