BOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- How much can you learn from a snake? How about a lizard or a frog?
One class is finding out. For teens trying to turn their lives around, there's nothing better than a healthy dose of reptile rehab.
It takes a team effort to make sure Murray the African black tinted monitor gets a nutritious and filling lunch. As the critter devours his midday meal, so do the students in Bob Pulliam’s herpetology class devour the lessons that come with studying a wide variety of reptiles up close and personal.
For the inner city guys in the course, getting close to a Burmese python or a Boa constrictor isn't snake handling in the religious sense, but it is a revelation.
This reptile science class is a world away from what students William, Tony, and Datonio knew before they were sent to the rural Ramey-Estep Home for troubled boys and girls. All the students go there under court order from street lives riddled with broken homes and bad choices.
“I lived on the street selling and doing drugs,” Datonio said.
“My mom kicked me out,” William said. “I had to raise my baby sister.”
”The class teaches them how to adapt,” Pulliam said.
Pulliam wants to take the reptile show on the road to grade schools and such and let the students become the teachers.
”We can show them to do things the right way, not like we used to,” Tony said.
These budding herpetologists say the most important thing they've learned here isn't necessarily how to handle a blue-tongued skink.
”Do what your mama says,” Datonio said. “If I did that, I wouldn't be here now.”
The Ramey-Estep Home has operated since the 1940s and houses more than 170 boys and girls who are mostly from the streets of Louisville and Lexington.
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