IRVINE : Join AIDS Campaign, Teens Urged

Nearly 200 students at University High School listened Tuesday as the mother of a former student who has contracted AIDS told them the disease will one day touch all of their lives through a relative or friend.

Fran Carman, the mother of a 1978 University High School graduate, spoke during a noon rally at the school held to encourage students to participate in Sunday’s AIDS Walk Orange County to raise money for AIDS research and to help county residents with the disease.

The rally was organized by Linh Tran, 16, president of the student Red Cross Club, in preparation for the fund-raising walk. Club members made 2,000 yellow paper bracelets to hand out to students Tuesday morning, each containing the name of a person who died of AIDS.

As Linh introduced Carman, the crowd of students clustered around the makeshift stage fell silent. Carman’s son Chris, now 31 and living in Houston, was tested positive for HIV six years ago and has since contracted full-blown AIDS.

AIDS “is something that will touch every single family,” Carman said. “Nobody will escape. . . . This is going to be the biggest epidemic.”

After the rally, Carman said she was excited that so many students listened to the speakers. Students probably are more inclined to help combat AIDS than their parents, she said.

“Parents think, ‘It’s not going to happen in my back yard. It’s not going to happen to my kids,’ ” said Carman, a member of the Irvine-based Orange County Mothers of AIDS Patients.

Also speaking at the rally Tuesday were Jay Wallace, 34, an Orange resident whose condition was diagnosed as AIDS in 1989; Jay Marzullo, a director of AIDS Walk Orange County, and Mike Reeves, a friend of University High School teacher Vincent L. Chalk, who died of AIDS in 1990.

Reeves, a sign-language interpreter at the high school, encouraged the students to remember Chalk by getting sponsors and signing up for the AIDS Walk.

“AIDS is a worldwide problem, but through your involvement we can become part of the solution,” Reeves said.

Money for the AIDS walk will go toward research, prevention and education programs, and to community agencies helping people with AIDS, Marzullo said. So far, 4,500 people in Orange County have signed up for the sixth annual walk.

About 120 students at University High School picked up sponsorship forms during the rally. Graeme Rael, a 17-year-old senior, said he was thinking about taking part in the walk.

“I think students are definitely open to it,” he said. “AIDS is a serious disease. It needs to be cured.”

Graeme’s friend Jeff Richmond, also 17, said that as students learn more about AIDS in school, they are realizing it’s not just a disease of gay men or any other specific group.

“Heterosexuals can get it too,” Graeme agreed. “It’s scary.”