Streets and parking lots crowded with extra vehicles and parentsand students engaged in joyful send-offs or tearful hugs greetedtoday’s start of new school in the Brookhaven School District.

The first day of school is an eventful one for every studentevery year, but officials at Mamie Martin Elementary said it’s funto see the mixture of emotions it brings to parents and kidsalike.

“There are usually a larger variety of looks on the faces of themoms and dads,” said Assistant Principal Rob McCreary. “But so farit’s gone as well as ever.”

Principal Donita Hobbs said the excitement in the air iscontagious, though for some, it’s bittersweet.

“This age of children is so excited about going to school,” shesaid. “Most of the parents are excited, but there are the ones thatare dropping their children off for the first time. We’ve seen someteary eyes, but I always say that means you’ve got a sweetparent.”

And with the school year on the horizon, Hobbs said one maingoal of the school is to encourage children to keep that excitementabout learning.

“We want to teach them to love school,” she said. “We have anurturing environment, and we want to keep them excited aboutschool.”

Hobbs said educators at her school focus not just on educatingtoday, but building leaders and pillars of the community.

“For most of our children, this is the first school they’llattend,” she said. “Our motto is ‘Mamie Martin Elementary: A placewhere little people learn today and lead tomorrow.'”

The arrival of around 900 children can cause some traffic on thefirst day of school.

“Most parents like to bring their kids the first day, and whenyou have 900 children coming in, that’s 900 sets of parents in theparking lot,” she said.

City-wide, with Brookhaven Police Department overlapped shiftsin order to cover the increased school traffic. McCreary said theirpresence was a great help to the schools in keeping trafficincidents down.

“We’ve had the police department down there helping to directtraffic,” he said. “It’s kept things flowing pretty smoothly sofar.”

Police Chief Pap Henderson said the traffic situation was aboutthe same as it is every year.

“It went good,” he said. “I don’t know a better way to do itbecause of the location of the schools. The first few days we haveto work it the best way we can and ask citizens of Brookhaven andLincoln County to be patient.”

Several students on their way to Brookhaven High School wereinvolved in an three-vehicle accident on Monticello Street thismorning; no injuries were reported. There was also a minor accidentin the Martin school parking lot.

Henderson said the traffic usually thins out after about thefirst week.

“Some citizens might have been inconvenienced from the traffic,”he said. “But we have this problem at the beginning of school everyyear, and it’ll smooth out.”

He said a bright spot was the parade held downtown for theBrookhaven High School seniors.

“It went really well,” he said.