STUDENT AD TAKES JAB AT TOBACCO.

Byline: Paul O'Donoghue Daily News Staff Writer

Instead of the rugged Marlboro Man gazing from the billboard of Moorpark Avenue and High Street, a skeletal cowboy rides a bony horse through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

The parody and accompanying messages - ``Come to Death Country'' and ``Surgeon General's Warning: Smoking Stinks'' comprise a winning entry in a contest held as part of an anti-tobacco program at Mesa Verde Middle School.

Moorpark's only billboard, which formerly touted smoking and alcohol, sports Ryan Zastrow's emaciated cowboy and a drawing by classmate Sean Storm, which depicts a giant cigarette stubbing out a person and captioning, ``Put it out before it puts you out.''

``If you are smoking right now, stop, because it can really ruin your life,'' said Zastrow, 12. ``It's like blowing your life away with every pack.''

Storm, also 12, said he hopes his winning anti-smoking message will help convince his father and grandmother to give up cigarettes.

``Smoking is not really cool,'' Storm said. ``Never do it, because once you start it's hard to get off it.''

The billboard contest was organized by Tobacco Use Prevention Education, a state-funded anti-smoking program. Organizers figured that the billboard was the perfect place to get out their anti-tobacco message - just as alcohol and tobacco companies previously used it to promote their products.

``That billboard had numerous advertisements for alcohol and tobacco over the years,'' said Sue Holtsnider, who oversees the TUPE program at several local schools. ``It was a message that was in students' faces every day. And school buses go by there every day.''

Mayor Patrick Hunter joined about 20 parents, teachers and students as a worker from Eller Media, which owns the billboard, pasted up the ad.

``We've had quite a few of these contests in different areas,'' said Ed Dato, a vice president at Eller Media. ``We probably donate about $1 million in public service advertising each year in Southern California. It's an ongoing program we've been doing for years. We're happy to do things like that for them.''

The company has agreed to donate the space to the anti-tobacco campaign for the next two to four weeks. After that, Dato said, ads promoting tobacco or alcohol will not appear on that billboard again.

The anti-tobacco crusade continues at 8:30 a.m. today with a tobacco awareness conference at Moorpark Community High. The keynote speaker will be Clark Bartram, the host of Fox-TV's ``American Health and Fitness'' program.

Students from Holtsnider's tobacco-cessation and health classes asked her to organize the conference, which is expected to include workshops on painting and graphic arts. Students will put the finishing touches to an anti-tobacco rap song they've been working on.

``I wanted to get the word out there that tobacco is bad, but, also, there are a lot of other things (the students) can get involved with that are healthy, other paths they can follow,'' Holtsnider said.

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PHOTO (Color) Anti-smoking messages created by Mesa Verde Middle School contest winners adorn Moorpark's only billboard.

Evan Yee/Daily News