Memorial Launches Clean Air Month

Twelve-year-old Preston Hedgepeth adored Michael Jordan, traded playing cards, swam and shot hoops. In short, he was like any other boy.

Then, during a music lesson on the keyboards last May, he began to feel short of breath. Too embarrassed to cause a stir in the classroom, he excused himself and went to the bathroom.

Preston died that day of an asthma attack.

In memory of the sixth-grader, his mother, his schoolmates and school and government officials gathered Thursday at Marina West School in Oxnard for the kickoff of the American Lung Assn. Clean Air Month. Thursday was also the official start of smog season.

“Children with asthma pay the greatest price for breathing polluted air,” said Chris Landon of the lung association. Although the air may appear clean, Ventura County has one of the highest concentrations of the odorless, clear ozone gas in the nation, according to a lung association study.

Preston was one of the more than 13,000 children in Ventura County who have asthma, a condition aggravated by polluted air.

Speakers at the event urged residents to help asthmatic children by taking a break from their cars on “Bike and Bus Day” on May 22.

“Think about all those places you get to in a car,” Preston’s mother, Carolyn Hedgepeth, told the audience, which included local politicians as well as students and faculty members. “Don’t you think you could get there by a bike, save some gas? One day can be a big step.”

Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez, who attended the event, said he can empathize with asthmatic children. He lost a left lung to tuberculosis, a disease he contracted when he was in the seventh grade. He understands what it means to gasp for air when car exhaust or smoke irritates his breathing passages.

“I’m on the air pollution control board,” Lopez said. “I probably have a greater interest than most. There’s that saying, ‘If you can’t breathe, nothing matters.’ It’s true.”