Saying no to tobacco in a school district where more than one in six high school students smoke can’t be easy. But support is in sight with Kodiak High School’s B-Boys break dancing team, the new highly visible antismoking symbol at the school.

The Kodiak B-Boys can frequently be found spinning on the ground in the KHS foyer, where the team enjoys the audience. The team wears sweatshirts that say “Got Air?”

The group’s adult leader Ben Achas said “air” refers to the space where acrobatic dance moves are performed and for the fresh air we breathe.

“They can say ‘I’ve got air.’ Why? Because I don’t smoke and because I get exercise,” he said. “We have a good opportunity to be a role model in the community.”

The B-Boys recently became poster boys for tomorrow’s Great American Smokeout, a nationwide event organized by the National Cancer Society to encourage smokers to quit the habit. The team accepted a proclamation from Kodiak City Mayor Carolyn Floyd.

Members of the team said the antismoking message is something they believe in, not merely something done for adults. The 12-member group is serious about being a good role model for kids, and has certainly succeeded in attracting younger students interested in breaking.

Tuesday night the high school team and younger breakers practiced their moves at the Kodiak Teen Center. The team practices almost every evening at 6 p.m.; although attendance varies because many of the students also play or coach basketball.

DJ Pablo’s “B-Boy’s War,” played on an MP3 player as the students froze in impossible-looking positions with names like the Baby Freeze.

Break dancer Gerson Monge said the group existed before they started break dancing.

“It started out as a friendship thing,” he said. “We saw people break dancing on TV and wanted to be like them.”

Members of the team take inspiration from performances by break dancing crews The Gamblers, and the Super Crew.

Team members agreed there was pressure to smoke cigarettes at KHS. The most recent (2007) survey showed 17.1 percent of high school students on Kodiak Island had smoked cigarettes during the month before the survey.

But Monge said the B-Boys have been able to ignore pressure to use tobacco.

“We don’t care,” he said. “We’re the B-Boys. We do our own thing.”

Betty MacTavish, a tobacco education coordinator for the Kodiak Area Native Association, said that the B-Boys were a good group to accept a Smokeout proclamation because the group is young and comes from the Filipino community — two groups that she said were especially at risk for tobacco abuse. But the Great American Smokeout is directed toward all smokers in Kodiak.

The 2008 Kodiak Community Health Survey found 17.7 percent of Kodiakans of all ages smoke — with 11.8 percent smoking every day. That’s higher than the 14.0 percent that health officials would like to see by the year 2010. But it’s still much lower than the 23.9 percent of Alaskans who smoke, or the national average of 20.0 percent.

MacTavish said in Kodiak there is an opportunity to get a free cold turkey on Thursday. Anyone who has quit since the last Great American Smokeout can claim a raffle ticket for a frozen turkey at the Great American Smokeout table at Safeway that day.

In addition to the Smokeout, MacTavish has worked on local anti-smoking efforts that produced the Kodiak Smoke-Free Dining Guide and the Tobacco Free Zones signs at Kodiak schools. She helped with a project that gives new mothers infant bodysuits that say: “My Mommy Loves me. She protects me from secondhand smoke.”

Achas became involved with the B-Boys group because he knows the students and because of his experience working with drug abusers. He currently is an outpatient counselor at the Providence Kodiak Island Counseling Center, where he said he often works with patients who have struggled with tobacco.

Before working at the counseling center he was a longtime youth supervisor and basketball coach at the teen center. He does not break dance, but became the informal supervisor of the group by suggesting the teen center when the group needed a place to practice.

His latest project is an effort to increase awareness of inhalants ­­­­— everyday products like paint and marking pens that can produce a cheap, but especially dangerous, high for young people who don’t have access to illegal drugs, alcohol or tobacco.

The B-Boys recently performed at the El Chicano fundraiser for the Kodiak Island Drummers. The group’s said its next gig might be a February high school dance concert.

Mirror writer Sam Friedman can be reached via e-mail at sfriedman@kodiakdailymirror.com.