Students join for annual prayer

RALEIGH -- As the sun rose Wednesday, prayers lifted like bubbles from around Millbrook High School's flagpole. Bless teachers. Fix Wall Street. Heal Cameron Vandenboom's sore foot.

More than 50 Millbrook teens joined millions of students for See You At The Pole, a yearly event inviting Christians globally to pray on school grounds.

They read from Psalm 23: "The Lord is my shepherd ..." They read from 1 Corinthians: "The Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power ..."

The latter verse particularly grabbed Michael Allen, a 17-year-old junior.

"Dude, Paul really nailed that on the head," he said of the apostle. "That's just so rad, and I pray we have the unity to bring God where we are -- in the halls, on the football field, even in the darkest spots on campus."

As the group headed to class, three or four students offered a final prayer for a classmate on crutches.

"I sliced my foot with an Exacto knife making something for homecoming," explained the injured Cameron Vandenboom, a senior. "I got four stitches."

See You At The Pole started among a handful of Texas teens in 1990 and has since grown to schools in Canada, Guam, Korea, Japan and Turkey.

In Benson on Wednesday, about 150 students gathered at West Johnston High School.

"They were doing this as everyone else was coming right past them, and you could see people coming to join in," said Scott Randlett, high school minister with Cleveland Community Church in Clayton.

Churches and Christian fellowships -- not the schools -- tend to organize each gathering, a key consideration for civil liberties groups.

"As long as these activities are completely voluntary and the school is not involved in promoting this, there wouldn't be a civil liberties problem," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

No one objected at Millbrook on Wednesday.

The group had free doughnuts, and it was bling-bling day for the school's spirit week -- so it was common to see students praying with fake gold teeth, gold chains and dollar-sign necklaces. One student, senior Laird Bowen, wore a full-sized hubcap around his neck.

No matter, though. The Lord works with mysterious praise.