Red ribbon week exposes truth to students about drug abuse
Matt Unrau
If as a parent you see your child start sporting yet another bracelet these past couple weeks, don’t worry. It’s not a fashion statement. It’s a social statement. Last week was National Red Ribbon week, the oldest and largest drug prevention week in the country, and one of the highlights for Plains high school featured a visit from Leo McCarthy and his team to challenge the students to take a stand against drinking and driving.
McCarthy is from Butte and had lost his daughter when she was killed in October of 2007 by an underage driver who had been drinking.
“Plains you have an opportunity, better than any town…create a movement where you don’t have to do this(drink and drive),” said McCarthy adressing the crowd.
In an emotional presentation McCarthy showed his daughter in the hospital after the accident and the form that the hospital sends you when you plan to donate your family member’s organs to another.
At the end of the presentation McCarthy played his daughter’s cell phone message and told the crowd to not become a message, but live your life as a message full of simple, self respect.
He then offered the students Mariah’s challenge where they would pledge to not drink and drive and sport the bracelet as a covenant to that fact.
Damian Reimann, an eighth grader at Plains schools, was surprised by what he learned and that he could potential kill someone while drunk and not remember anything about it. “Say, I did drink,” hypothesizes Damian. “I could not be aware of what would happen.”
“Say I got drunk last night and seriously injured someone and the cops came up to me. I would be like ‘what.’”
Fellow eighth grader James Rulison also couldn’t imagine being responsible for injuring someone. “I would just hate the thought of knowing I ran over someone,” says James.
Two days after the presentation Damian found himself flying through the air of the high school gym as part of a mobile ropes course put on by Camp Bighorn. Several students pulled one end of a rope harnessed to the ceiling and to Damian sending him flying upward. Another part of the course featured a student climbing a vertical pole stabalized by three groups of students with poles.
All of the adrenaline pounding activities by Camp Big Horn were part of a project to teach the kids about taking risks and making good choices says Caleb Sapp with Camp Bighorn. He says that many of the risks people perceive as dangerous like flying through the air on a rope or actually safe compared to a risk like drinking and driving that many people perceive as not dangerous, but actually is lethal. “What’s an appropriate risk, what’s an unecessary risk?” Sapp explains. “We’re using the activity to allow students to engage in healthy risks.”
For Damian it was the first time he says that he’s ever flown through the air before, and that “it’s actually really fun.”
At the same time students around the school performed other activities to teach them different qualities in order for them to be able to say no to drugs. In the music room students had to walk through an obstacle course blindfolded. As their fellow classmates yelled instructions to them the students had to “listen to the right voices” in order to safely navigate the course. It mirrored real life as the students will have to learn to distinguish good advice from bad advice in order to stay clear of drugs in the future.
For more information on Mariah’s Challenge please visit mariahschallenge.com.