Five Elise seventh-grade students recently were awarded certificates for submitting a winning entry to the state-wide "Sing With Me I'm Bully Free" Anti-Bullying Campaign sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention -- Center for the Prevention of School Violence (DJJDP -- Center).

Last spring these students, as sixth graders, recorded a song during a music class field trip to Bill Tripp's recording studio in Carthage. Colton Moore, Dontre Baldwin and Brandon Dinges wrote the lyrics to a song that they titled "Bebox Rock."

The lyrics were then put to music, which included the guitar playing of Moore.

These students were joined by classmates Andrea Brower and Fatima Ferrer, who added their vocal skills to the recorded song. Next, a compact disc of the song was submitted to the "Anti-Bullying Campaign."

"Elise School and the students (as new seventh graders) were ecstatic to receive the news that their song was chosen as a winning entry," says a spokesman.

"What started out as an idea in music class next turned into a day in a recording studio, to a CD being sent to the state, to receiving a certificate for our winning entry," says Colton Moore. "The main point of our song is to tell those who bully others that they had better change their ways."