Prevention Week, April 22 through April 26, will feature a variety of activities throughout School District 55, including a speaker who was once chief diver for the Cousteau Society.
Elizabeth Rich, the district’s new prevention coordinator, is organizing the activities and will plan a variety throughout the year, including the revival of October’s Red Ribbon Week activities.
The new position is funded by a three-year federal grant and based at Sweet Home Junior High. Rich will work with children at all of the schools including the Effective Behavioral Support program in the elementary and junior high schools.
Right now, she is pulling together the wide range of prevention programs already in place throughout the district and providing resources to those programs.
“I have been really impressed with the district, how much they have in place,” Rich said. She comes to Sweet Home from Benton County where she worked in schools across the county.
During prevention week, the junior high will hold special assemblies on harassment, drugs and other subjects. A tobacco prevention poster contest, starting April 18, will be held in all schools. A 15-minute program involving the fire department, parents, the Boys and Girls Club and more will be held at the high school. The “Barfboro” van will be in town. Other events are still in the planning stages.
In the poster contest, each building will have three trophies available for each grade. Two grand prize trophies will be awarded, one for the junior high and one for the high school.
Steve Arrington will speak at schools throughout the week and at a special community meeting from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on April 23 at the Boys and Girls Club.
Arrington is the author of Journey into Darkness, a true story that begins on Hawaii’s glistening sands and ends in the mysterious deep of the great white shark. In between he found himself trapped in the drug-smuggling trade, unwittingly becoming involved in the highly publicized John Z. DeLorean drug trial.
Naval career shattered, his youthful innocence tested, he locked on one truth during his save stay in prison and endeavors to share that critical truth now.
“The presentation will include the best of the best slides from seven Cousteau expeditions,” Arrington, who was the chief diver aboard the windship Alcyone, said. The images include shots of huge great white sharks, diving with an underwater lava flow, swimming with killer whales that are catching and eating reef sharks, riding giant manta rays, close encounters with humpback whale calves and wild baby dolphins and more.
“I share exciting true stories about diving with whales, dolphins and great white sharks while weaving in my anti-drug/crime message,” Arrington said. “My goal is to motivate youths to reach for their dreams and not make choices that can lead to nightmares.”
“I speak from the perspective of someone who unfortunately made a marijuana mistake that directly led to my becoming a co-defendant in the John DeLorean drug trial of 1982. In a prison cell, I fully realized that the mistakes were completely my own. Wanting to recapture happiness and self-worth, I made a commitment to pursue only good choices. Two years after leaving prison, I was hired by The Cousteau Society as a chief diver and expedition leader.…
“I address serious youth choices, including drugs, crime, gangs and suicide. I always discuss with the school staff how best I can serve their student body. The presentations have been enthusiastically received for over 10 years.”
Leading up to the April 23 community meeting and dinner will be an assembly at the junior high where Boys and Girls Club Program Director Bob Teter will play the grim reaper.
Every 15 minutes, a drunk driver kills someone, Teter said. To represent that, he will take 10 students out of class during the day. Grim reaper faces will be painted, and the students will be sent back to class where they will not talk with anyone.
They return to class as “a distant memory,” representing someone who died, Teter said. Those students will take time during the assembly to remember, “to represent people killed by drunk drivers.” The assembly will include activities stressing the perils of drinking alcohol.
That night, at the community meeting, a smaller “grim reaper” activity will be held along with the dinner and Arrington’s program, “Drugs Bite.”