On June 15, the same day that three Roanoke County high school students face preliminary hearings in New York on criminal mischief and misdemeanor charges, another group of area teens will travel to the city on a considerably happier errand.

Some 30 rising sophomores, juniors and seniors from Hidden Valley High have decided to spend a day doing service work for the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel in Manhattan and for New York's 17th Precinct police station, across from the hotel.

The trip is a response to the May 7 incident in which three students were arrested and accused of throwing paint cans from the roof of the 20-story Doubletree hotel, damaging police vehicles and slightly injuring an officer.

After the incident was reported on national news, Hidden Valley High principal David Blevins overheard "some of the kids ... saying they'd like to do something positive. I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning one night and said, 'This would be a neat way of making it better.' "

Though he doesn't yet know exactly what the students' duties will be, Blevins has been in touch with the hotel and the police and he says they're interested in the plan. Six chaperones will travel with the students, including incoming principal Rhonda Stegall.

"I'm retiring at the end of the year, so I've conned the new principal into coming with us," Blevins said. "It'll give her a chance to spend some time with the future leaders of Hidden Valley High and get to know them."

The students are paying about $400 to $500 each to go; the trip will also include one day of sightseeing, but will extend into the first week of summer vacation. After the trip, Blevins said, "Three of the kids are going to have to leave directly from New York. Two are flying back from New York to Raleigh for a training week for swimming, and one is going from New York to Brown University for a workshop."

"I'm actually going to be missing Relay For Life," said Kaitlin Thomas, a rising senior. "It was a hard decision, but I feel like it was right."

"Mr. Blevins is getting ready to retire," she said. "He could just walk away and say, 'I'm done.'

"His character and personality is not to walk away from something if he has the ability to make things right."