"I have had a full and joyful and I hope productive life, and I intend to have other chapters that will meet those same standards, " Graham said at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, with his wife and daughter at his side.

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In the meantime, he is able to join sponsors and the producers of "42" in taking students from Abraham Lincoln High School, in Brooklyn's coastal Coney Island neighborhood to a screening of the movie on the 66rd anniversary of the day Robinson broke major league baseball's color barrier.

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Lincoln sounded like a boring high school history class come to life, yet it became a critical and box-office triumph.

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Afterward, the finalists embraced like the old friends that they are, having met via organized jazz programs: Mr. Stranahan and Mr. Brown met through the Brubeck Institute, and Mr. Ross at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Essentially Ellington high-school band competition.

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Sue Graves, a safety coordinator for the Lincoln County School District, told lawmakers that high school students in her district take semester-long classes that teach CPR and other survival techniques in the wake of a giant earthquake.

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For example, since 1996, Jazz at Lincoln Center has staged "Essentially Ellington, " an annual competition among high-school bands across the country centered around Ellington's music.

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