do.

And they should try their hardest to achieve the goals that they set for themselves and reach the standards that they want to reach.

This came from the 1995 Overall Outstanding Teen of the Year 16-year-old Sarah Carr who won the title at a Marriott's Castle Harbour Resort banquet on Saturday night.

Almost 300 people honoured Bermuda's Outstanding Teens in areas including sports, academics, leadership and spiritual leadership. And the guest speaker for the evening was Sandys Secondary School teacher Mr. Llewellyn Simmons.

Bermuda High School student Sarah, won the title for her overall performance in school, and community service work.

In an interview yesterday, she said she was honoured to be the recipient of this award.

"I am very honoured, it was a complete surprise. But I am initially honoured because my school put me forward as the candidate for the category of outstanding teen.

"I didn't know much about the whole programme and the teen awards but it is nice to be recognise for everything I have done.'' She added: "I have done a lot outside of school, a lot of extra curricular activities such as public speaking and debating, and I take five dance classes a week.

"I also assist in teaching 5-7 year-olds in ballet and tap at the Jackson school of Dance and I help teach gymnastics once a week.'' In her spare time she also does community service at Westmeath elderly home and tutors young children after school.

She added that as a role model, "I hope to meet what is expected of me. I have been lucky to have parents that were able to give me what I wanted in the ways of activities that I wanted to do or instruments that I wanted to play. I was able to do all of the activities that I do now which I expect gave me this title.'' Asked about issues that involve the community such as violence, Sarah said: "If everyone had more respect for each other we wouldn't have so much violence.

"It is prejudices, not only racial but more where you live, where you go to school, and what you look like that lead to the violence.

"Husbands beating wives: That is not respect for other individuals and the graffiti on the walls at the Bermuda College is not respecting the people that go there.

"I can't make people respect each other but things like the Teen Conference and other places where people can get together and discuss the topics that everyone has in common and forget about the other things like where you live or what you look like is a positive step towards stopping the violence.

"All teens have something in common. We are all growing up being affected by different things but the bottom line is we are all being affected.'' Special recognition in the Outstanding Teen category was given to Teriq Smith who said: "I want to leave the young people with a message. The talk that we hear nowadays about drugs and violence has us in a modern day state of slavery.

"Instead of shackles around our ankles they are binding our minds and we will always remain slaves until we stand up and think independently.''