Pueblo -- A cigarette exchange program and remembrance wall are among the events scheduled on Nov. 20 at Colorado State University - Pueblo as part of the American Cancer Society's 26th annual Great American Smokeout, which encourages smokers to quit for a day in hopes they may quit for good.

CSU-Pueblo students from the Tackling Life's Choices Peer Education organization and the Exercise Science and Health Promotion and Recreation department will offer a cigarette exchange program, in which students trade in cigarettes for mints, sunflower seeds or other prizes. A cigarette count activity will allow students to enter their guesses on how many cigarettes will be exchanged by the end of the day's event. At locations all over campus, students will draw chalk outlines of smoking related illness victims and related smoking death statistics written beside them. The booth with contests, quit kits, and information on how to quit smoking will be available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Occhiato University Center Great Hall.

Statistics show that the majority of CSU-Pueblo students don't smoke (84%). Of those students who do smoke, 68% have made a serious attempt to quit.

Even though the Smokeout officially began in 1977, the event's roots reach back to 1971, when Arthur P. Mullaney challenged the citizens of Randolf, Mass., to give up cigarettes for the day and donate the saved money to a high school scholarship fund. Mullaney coined the term Smokeout. Later, Lynn R. Smith, editor of the Monticello Times in Minnesota, spearheaded that state's first D-Day, or Don't Smoke Day. D-Day spread like wildfire throughout Minnesota, and then blazed west to California where it became the Great American Smokeout.

CSU-Pueblo participates in the Colorado Collegiate Tobacco Prevention Initiative through the BACCHUS and GAMMA Peer Education Network, which creates comprehensive tobacco control programs on college campuses in Colorado. Kits are available through the Exercise Science and Health Promotion Recreation department to students, faculty, and staff who want to quit. Students, as well as staff and faculty, can also call the Colorado Quit Line at 1-800-639-QUIT or use the Colorado Quit Net at www.co.quitnet.com for free support and resources.

For more information about Great American Smokeout events at CSU-Pueblo, call Dr. Carol Foust, chair of EXHPR and the Tackling Life's Choices organization at (719) 549-2337.

Colorado State University - Pueblo is a regional, comprehensive university emphasizing professional, career-oriented, and applied programs. Displaying excellence in teaching, celebrating diversity, and engaging in service and outreach, CSU-Pueblo is distinguished by access, opportunity, and the overall quality of services provided to its students.