May 1, 1995
Is Burrillville High School in northwest Rhode Island a microcosm of small-town kids watching the senior class edging warily toward adulthood? In 1992, Miller, a staff writer at the Providence Journal-Bulletin, began shadowing two lively teens--Dave Bettencourt, at the start of his last year in high school, and Beth, his girlfriend and a provocative sophomore. ``Energy, optimism and refreshing flakiness'' are the observable traits this writer-in-residence enjoys when he joins Dave in a series of adventures, some comical, some not so funny. They involve a radical underground school paper, Dave's stated goal to be named class clown, his serious dating and all the preliminaries to the serious matter of looming adulthood. Miller describes the universal experiences of adolescents growing up in a world quite different from that of their parents' youth. Photos not seen by PW.