STUDENT LEARNS TO MEET GOALS

JACKSON -- Joshua Pennebaker gets most of his questions in class answered on the first try now.

This has made life more pleasant, not only for the 265-pound high school football player, but for his classmates, too.

"I'd be in a big class with a lot of students, and I'd try to ask the teacher a question," said Pennebaker, a 17-year-old junior at Jackson High School. "I'd ask three or four times for an explanation, but wouldn't get it. Then I'd get frustrated and get into trouble."

That meant either a derogatory comment to the teacher or a fight with another student. As an eighth-grader, Pennebaker was sent to the principal's office more than 30 times.

"I think it was probably a record," he said.

A history teacher, Gerald Litner, spent much time with Pennebaker, supervising his detentions.

When Litner was invited to run Jackson's new alternative school three years ago, he invited Pennebaker to come along.

"My parents were told that if I didn't go, I wouldn't make it," Pennebaker said. "If it wasn't for Mr. Litner, I probably would have quit."

The small class size made a difference for Pennebaker, who spent the full school day during ninth grade at the alternative school.

As he gives a tour of the two-story house, it's clear Pennebaker is at home in the school.

When a teacher pointed out the leaning door frames and other inadequacies of the house, conversation turned toward finding a fresher, more polished facility.

Pennebaker's face got a little longer.

"It would be a same," he said.

Other students have developed the same attachment, said Rick McClard, Jackson High School principal.

"We've had kids who graduated from the alternative school come back to visit," he said. "I'd like to see that happening as often at the high school, but it doesn't."

Over the past three years, Pennebaker has consistently weaned himself from the alternative school lessons and into regular high school classes. This year he only takes one alternative school English class in the mornings.

Poetry can be hard to grasp at times for Pennebaker, Litner said.

But Pennebaker can explain the alternative school. Newer students will ask him for advice about Litner and what to do in certain subjects.

Pennebaker hasn't been reprimanded by a teacher since he started alternative school.

"When I think about what I did in eighth grade, I can't believe it," he said.

Credit for change also goes to football.

"I started hanging around role models when I began playing," Pennebaker said. "I kind of quit talking to my old friends, period."

He feels closer to the other students at the alternative school. Pennebaker and Joey Beard, another junior he met in alternative classes, are making plans to visit a school for building race cars in the spring. They might go there when they graduate, Pennebaker said.

He is also thinking about studying electronics or becoming a personal trainer.

His mother, Wanda Richard, said she had mixed feelings about the alternative school when it was first suggested. Her feelings aren't mixed now.

"With a lot of prayers and the alternative school, he has come a long way," Richard said. "I think he straightened himself up really good."

She is not concerned about him any more or when he stays out too late on weekends. He has matured and found some direction in life, she said.

Pennebaker is glad the alternative school has helped him find some goals.

"You almost have to try to mess up here not to succeed," he said.