12 Schools Honored for Anti-Smoking Ads

Students from 12 San Fernando Valley middle schools were honored Saturday for their animated anti-smoking ads.

The students participated in a program in which they learned to conceptualize and produce animated work. The program was funded by the state Proposition 99 excise tax on tobacco products and jointly run by Animaction American Inc., a Los Angeles animation company, and the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The youngsters were assigned to develop animated 30-second public service announcements aimed at turning kids off to smoking.

Valley middle schools honored at the program’s sixth annual ceremonies were Hale, Lawrence, Carnegie, Madison, Carver, Columbus, Millikan, Nobel, Parkman, Valley Alternative Magnet, Van Nuys and Frost.

Their winning public service announcements will eventually be included in the school curricula, played at local hospitals and aired on cable stations, according to Clifford Cohen, a spokesman for Animaction.

Andrew Davis, 12, of Valley Alternative Magnet School, will be in attendance accepting the award for his winning announcement. Andrew, a sixth-grader, found that the workshop expanded his career options because “it allowed me to see my creative side and to figure out I can do other things other than be a lawyer, which is what I want to do when I grow up,” he said.

Animators from Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Studios and Steven Spielberg Productions were to be on hand Saturday for the presentation of awards in a ceremony at USC.