news-record.com

GREENSBORO - Six Guilford County middle school students were honored Thursday night for their work in promoting peace, diffusing violence and becoming role models at their school.

Win-Win Resolutions, a nonprofit that helps area students fight prejudice and develop conflict resolution skills, announced the winners during an annual reception at Greensboro Embassy Suites.

In its eight-year history, Win-Win Resolutions has worked with 30,000 local students. And on Thursday night, in front of a crowd of 400 people, the nonprofit added six more to their growing list.

The six students received Win-Win's Young Peacemaker Award. The winners, chosen from a field of 37, were:

• Terrell Garrison, a 2008 graduate of Southwest Guilford Middle School.
• Cameron McClellan, an eighth-grader at Northern Middle School
• Darnella Reeder, a 2008 graduate of Jackson Middle School
• Erin Stephens, a seventh-grader at Kiser Middle School
• Austin Tavenner, an eighth-grader at Kernodle Middle School.
• Molly Uffman, an eighth-grader at Southeast Guilford Middle School.

On Thursday night, the students wore their Sunday best. They walked up to the podium, quoted John F. Kennedy Jr., Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. and talked ever so briefly about stopping fights, tutoring their peers, working with their church, working with local nonprofits and getting involved in school.

And one, Cameron McClellan, even recited her own poem about peace.

For their work, the students received a plaque, a $100 savings bond from Southern Community Bank and miscellaneous donations from various businesses.
Then, they walked off the stage, toward their parents, relatives and friends, after being honored for doing the right thing when doing the right thing is often tough to do.

"When I asked my parents what I should say, they told me, 'Say what's in your heart, your heart is why you're here,''' Austin told the crowd. "Well, I did the right thing because I thought that was what I was supposed to do.''