Miss Virginia targets bullies

Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School students Ryan Haynes (second from left) and Ray Rowe (right) hold a “Faces of Bullycide” Quilt that Miss Virginia Adrianna Sgarlata (left) had made and uses in her presentations on bullying. The quilt is embroidered with pictures of children who killed themselves after being bullied. (Henry County Schools’ photo)

Thursday, March 1, 2007

By SHAWN HOPKINS - Bulletin Staff Writer

Even Miss Virginia was bullied in grade school.

Even before she became Miss Virginia, the 23-year-old Fairfax native became involved with antibullying causes. At 21, she became director of the Virginia Chapter of Bully Police USA, and when she ran for Miss Virginia and participated in the Miss America Pageant, fighting bullying was her platform. She also lobbied for two anti-bullying bills that were passed by the state General Assembly in 2005. “This was something that happened to me starting in fifth grade,” said Adrianna Sgarlata, the reigning Miss Virginia, who spoke to all Fieldale-Collinsville Middle School grades about bullying Wednesday. She said the incidents might have started as playful flirting, but eventually the boys in her school were breaking her things. One day, she said, they spit chewed-up chocolate chip cookie in her hair. “It was very devastating to me as a 9-year-old,” she said. Wednesday, Sgarlata talked about the different types of bullying — physical, verbal and emotional. When she first starts her talk, she said, middle-school age children generally think things such as someone being stuffed in a locker are funny. “I talked to them about while we see this stuff and we think it’s funny, it’s really not,” she said. For her presentations, Sgarlata brings along a quilt embroidered with pictures of children who have killed themselves after being bullied.

More at the Source

---

TKPN
PageantCast Home
Frappr Map
Podcast Pickle Page
Our Feed
One Click Subscribe in Juice
One Click Subscribe in iTunes