Butler Junior High School history teacher Doug Ford gets dunked during Stand Tall festivities after school Tuesday. The program asks students to abstain from drugs and submit to random drug testing. For participating, students are invited to monthly activities.

With hot dogs, snow cones and hundreds of golf balls, Butler Junior High School Tuesday kicked off the second year of its drug prevention program.

Stand Tall this year has 560 members at the junior high, school adviser Dana Clark said. The program asks students to abstain from drugs and submit to random drug testing. For participating, students are invited to monthly activities. This is the first of the year.

About 200 students stayed after school Tuesday to compete in a sponge toss, a hula-hoop race and to get dressed like firefighters.

Volunteers from the Butler Rotary Club served popcorn, hot dogs and snow cones.

But, when it was time for golf balls to be dumped from atop a fire engine ladder as a fundraiser, everyone ran to the school's playground.

A city engine was parked with its ladder extended over a custom-made contraption shaped like a bird bath. Then a garbage bag full of numbered balls was dumped from the ladder. The corresponding ticket of the first ball to go into the center hole of the contraption won a plasma TV.

The money raised by selling the tickets will benefit Stand Tall.

Stand Tall, sponsored largely by Butler County Against Heroin, began last year in the junior high. Enrollment quickly surpassed expectations.

This year, the program was expanded to include the intermediate and senior high schools. Karns City and Knoch high schools also adopted similar programs.

Before the activities, Butler County Against Heroin presented an award to John and Denise Steilley for their donations to the program. The Steilley family, which has ownership of Amerikohl Mining, donates thousands of dollars each year to education.