(EXCERPT) European edition, Friday, May 10, 2002

Easy-to-lose lunch tickets are now history at Mannheim Elementary School as
students now use a personal identification number linked to an account to buy
lunch, extra cartons of chocolate milk and other snacks.

"It looks like it’s running fine," said Mannheim Elementary School principal
Bonnie Bowen-Hannan. "The youngest children have to pull out paper with their
PIN on, but in no time they’ll have the number memorized."

The pilot program, run by the Army and Air Force Exchange Service, began April
29 at Mannheim Elementary School and Mannheim High School in Germany. Before
that, parents bought a stack of lunch coupons at the local post exchange that
their children would use for their meals.

Now AAFES-Europe, which administers the school lunch program for Department of
Defense Dependents Schools-Europe, is trying the new system, which has students
enter a PIN onto a keypad linked to a computer that accesses an account
database.

"This is becoming the norm in the States," said Army Maj. Betty Quitt, the
staff dietitian based at AAFES headquarters in Dallas.

AAFES is runni...

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