Boot camp graduates troubled youth

Another 116 troubled teenagers have finished the Show-Me Challenge program. Organizers hope they’re a lot less troubled now than they were six months ago. It’s a high-discipline, quasi-military program run at the National Guard’s “Camp Clark.” It’s the 5th graduating class from the program that started in the summer of 1998. Program director Sam Shellman says much of the program’s success is measured by what happens after graduation. He admits there have been some backsliders–teenagers who get back into trouble. But he says the large majority has stayed clean. Some have even joined the military. Some, who were school dropouts when they started the program, have gone to college.