State schools Superintendent Mike Ward plans to recommend this spring that no teen-ager under 18 be allowed to quit high school as part of a push to cut North Carolina's dropout rate.
Southern Alamance High School students are trying to make a difference for the the Jones and Wheeler families after a drunk driver killed Darren Jones and left Carl Wheeler severely injured.
Etheridge released a statement Thursday announcing he was running for the job, just hours after former University of North Carolina system president Erskine Bowles decided against it.