A national youth group is reaching at-risk African-American youths by drawing on the honor of the Buffalo Soldiers.

        The soldiers were blacks who served in cavalry and infantry regiments in the late 1800s. They suffered through prejudice while fighting to subdue Mexican revolutionaries, outlaws, rustlers and hostile American Indians.

        The youth group, known as VisionQuest, thinks the Buffalo Soldiers made distinguished achievements which make them ideal heroes for today's African- American youth.

        “We do living history to recognize the positive contributions minorities made to American history,” said Mark Contento, vice president of administration for VisionQuest. “We think Cincinnati needs this because of the problems it has had recently.”

        VisionQuest will appear in Evanston from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday during a parade and program sponsored by Evanston Weed & Seed.

        The parade will start at Dana and Montgomery roads and move south to the Evanston Recreation Center, 3204 Woodburn Ave., where the group will give a drill performance using horses, and participate in a cookout.

        Free tickets will be given for the performance.

        The group, based in Tucson, Ariz., seeks to help troubled kids turn their lives around by using a balanced approach of education, psychology, fitness, nature, history and traditions.

        They will stop in Evanston en route to Atlanta.

        MADEIRA — Candace Day, 11, saved her family's lives and those of several friends at a camping trip last Friday.

        Candace can't stand the smell of smoke and yells at her mother for smoking.

        When she awakened about 7 a.m. last Friday while they slept in a 36-foot camper in Higginsport, Ohio, she got a whiff of smoke, but this time it wasn't mom's cigarette. The camper was on fire.

        “First, I thought it was a dream,” she said. “Then when I realized it was a fire, I got scared. I began to wake the rest of the family right away.”

        She and her parents, Missi, 36, and Scott Caesar, 42; brother, Brooks Caesar, 11; and friends Steven Crawley, 11, Steven Valmassoi, 12, and Danny Cox, 12, were able to get to safety.

        Mrs. Caesar said the camper was destroyed. The fire was caused by an electrical short in the water heater.

        “We all got out in about 30 seconds,” Mrs. Caesar said. “I am proud of her, even though she yells at me for smoking.”

        Don't ever say the Cincinnati police are not “Johnny-on-the-spot” where there is a shooting. When they get a call, they act instantly.

        Just ask the staff filming the movie, Get Right or Get Left, a religious film about the life of Jerry White Jr., who grew up in Forest Park.

        During filming of a shooting scene at Linn and Findlay streets in the West End last week, someone called police to report it. Within minutes, the area was filled with cruisers. Officers rushed to an actor lying in the street with fake blood.

        “We were shooting the scene, and suddenly here come the patrol cars,” said Valencia Hawkins, one of the wardrobe coordinators. “Things turned out OK. The police said they had received a call that there was a shooting.”

       Allen Howard's column runs Saturdays. Call: 768-8362. Mail: The Cincinnati Enquirer, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202.

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