By Shelley Davis
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - It was a scene that could have been taken from the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

Forty-eight fifth- and sixth-graders from Our Lady of the Rosary School in Greenhills packed a hearing room Thursday at the Ohio Statehouse. They traveled 100 miles to speak on behalf of their "adopted" friend, Leon Moss, a 62-year-old man who is mentally retarded.

As fellow students, wearing school uniforms, offered silent support, four classmates summoned up the pluck to urge the Ohio House Finance Committee not to cut funding for county boards of mental retardation.

Moss sat in a wheelchair right next to his friends. As he listened to them talk, his toothless grin expressed his delight.

"Why are these people treated so differently, just because they aren't as intelligent as most other people are?" asked sixth-grader Mark Krause. "Why must they spend their lives in impersonal group homes and nursing facilities where everyone that enters their lives gets paid to do so?" Committee Chairwoman Merle Grace Kearns, R-Springfield, called the visit a welcome surprise and complimented the students on their comprehensive testimony.

Although the Ohio Department of Mental Retardation's proposed $349.6 million share of the General Revenue Fund in 2004 marks a 4 percent increase overall, county mental retardation boards will take a 3 percent cut under Gov. Bob Taft's budget proposal, said Robert Jennings, spokesman for the department.

That cut is what has the students upset, said Tom Eamoe, director of The Arc Hamilton County, an advocacy group for people with mental retardation.

All of Moss' personal services, such as physical therapy and transportation, are coordinated through the Hamilton County Board of Mental Retardation. If funds are cut, he will have to find other ways to pay.

The students' journey to the Statehouse began earlier this year, when their teacher, Sue Daniel, finished her lesson early. She had planned to visit her friend, Moss, that evening and asked her students to make cards and paper airplanes for him.

When she brought back photographs of Moss surrounded by his gifts, they said, "So, when do we get to meet him?"

Moss came to visit during their Valentine's Day party, and since then, Daniel said, "the kids really do consider him part of their class."

The students said meeting Moss made them think about something they'd never really considered before - how mentally retarded people live their everyday lives.

Moss has lived in a Cincinnati nursing home called Harmony Court for about a year now, Daniel said. But he spent most of his life in the Columbus State Institute, a facility that was shut down in the 1980s.

Eamoe said none of the residents had any teeth, because that made it easier for the staff to keep their mouths clean. Before the 1960s, Eamoe said, the institution didn't use anesthesia when they pulled out teeth.

Moss was moved into the institution when he was 13 years old, and was one of the last patients to be moved to another facility when the institution was shut down, Eamoe said.

The students' outrage overflowed when they talked about the stories they'd heard of the institution.

"Leon has the mental capacity of a 2-year-old. You wouldn't pull the teeth out of a 2-year old without giving them medication," said Matthew Heaton, a sixth-grader.

"Not even a dog," added Carmen Nemore, a fifth-grader.

The students asked their teacher what they could do to help people like Moss. They studied how mentally retarded people were treated in the past, and found out how programs and hospitals get funding.

The students made a cardboard "Wheel of Misfortune" to show lawmakers how people with disabilities constantly are mistreated. They asked legislators to consider shifting money from nursing homes, where state funds pay for 12,000 unoccupied beds.

"Personal assistance and transportation and home health care are all vital to the well-being of these members of society," Krause said. "Those things cost money, but they are essential if people like Leon are going to live good, happy lives."

Moss is one of many participants in Hamilton County's Covenant of Support program, which matches volunteers with someone with mental retardation.

"The common thread in the treatment of those with mental retardation is isolation, and this is the only thing that breaks through that isolation," Eamoe said.

The students' involvement with Leon was especially noteworthy because he isn't "young and cute" like most of the other adoptees.

The children don't seem to mind. They appear to have fallen in love with the man, who they said loves fruit punch and likes to sing songs.

"People say Leon can't talk, but listen to him, he can. No one ever took the time to get to know him," Heaton said.

Colleen Krajewski, a sixth-grader, said if funding isn't taken away, she hopes it can be used to start similar programs in other schools.

"What we get back from Leon is one hundred times greater than we could ever give. It's time to begin taking care of everyone, even those who are different from you and me," she said.

E-mail davis.1508@osu.edu