By Michael Motes

If Kimberly or Derek Krautter, students at Immaculate Heart of Mary School, were given an essay assignment on “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” it might start off something like this:

“One day our family decided to take a walk. We started in Savannah and headed for Chattanooga.”

Well, the story would go on the family didn’t quite make it all the way to Chattanooga, but they did cover a lot of territory across Georgia as the campaigned to “Stop Drugs as the Source.”

Ken Krautter, an Atlanta accountant who recently resigned his CPA job to devote all of his time to the “Stop Drugs at the Source” issue, is scheduled to complete the “Awareness Walk” into Chattanooga on Monday, September 16.

Krautter’s aim is to eventually obtain 3.5 million signatures from throughout the state on petitions urging all elected officials to “request a FBI-GBI investigation into the link between officials at all levels of government and organized crime which constitutes the source of drugs that are killing our children.”

Through his summer hiking activities and an ad he runs in the Atlanta daily newspapers, Krautter has obtained nearly 200,000 signatures to day.

Long-range plans call for a nationwide campaign aimed at a goal of 200 million signatures on petitions. A major corporation has agreed to provide “Stop Drugs at the Source” with billboards advertising Krautter’s idea.

Pictured on the signs will be the Krautter children, Mary Sue Cannon, who also attends Immaculate Heart of Mary School, and Ansley Harris, a student in the Atlanta Public School System.

Krautter became involved with his campaign three years ago when he was approached by a pregnant 13-year-old who had turned to prostitution to support her heroin habit.

Krautter could not dismiss the unbelievable episode from his mind. Trying to find a way to help others who had reached similar depths of despair, Krautter came up with the idea to petition officials concerning the drug problem.

“I thought a lot about it,” says Krautter. “I could understand why addicts take the stuff. I could understand why a child, succumbing to peer pressure, would try it. And I could understand why the pushers keep on because there’s big money in drugs. But what I couldn’t understand is why do we permit it?

“We don’t really have a drug problem. We have a people problem. Things can only happen if we let them happen. It’s time to put a stop to drugs.”

Krautter launched his walk to make people aware of the need to inform government officials that the people of Georgia have had enough of the problems caused by drugs and that something must be done now before the problem grows to epidemic proportions.

Throughout the summer he has met with officials of numerous cities and towns in Georgia and has been deeply moved by the interest generated by his one-family campaign.

But one of the aspects of the “Stop Drugs at the Source” campaign that Krautter is most excited about is what he terms his “bomb.”

The “bomb” was launched by a speech Krutter gave to the kindergarten students of Sister Barbara Tucker at Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“That speech was the hardest I’ve ever had to give,” Krautter recalls. “I had to face a group of 5-year-olds and tell them about drugs. I came up with the idea of asking them what they would do if they wanted something.

“They responded that they would ask their parents for it. I then told them that I wanted something and I was asking them to help me get it. Would they think of someone important and ask them to sign a petition to put an end to drugs? The response was overwhelming. The kids decided not only to ask their parents to sign petitions, but to write to people they considered very important.”

From the kindergarten class, the idea of letter writing expanded to other IHM grades and a flood of letters went out from the school. Governor Carter and then-President Nixon were among those most frequently written to by the students. Others chosen by the students ranged from Hank Aaron to John Sirica.

Krautter’s son Derek wrote both to Nixon and Carter and received a personal reply from the governor and a package of information from the White House.

After his return from Chattanooga, Krautter will focus his attention to further contact with schools in the archdiocese.