“Your job is supposed to be having fun but people are trying to steal your happiness…”
Steve Arrington told Sweet Home Junior High School students those words Friday afternoon, climaxing a week’s visit to the community and driving home a message to students of all ages that drug use can rob them of their dreams and even their life.
Arrington speaks with the perspective of someone who was living his dream but lost it and nearly his life to the drug culture. A former Navy diver, a “golden boy” as an NBC TV commentator called him, Arrington has spent nearly 20 years urging young people to make wise choices daily and to avoid the mistakes he made that landed him in prison for nearly three years.
Arrington’s message has been told at some 1,400 schools in 49 states.
“Did you know there are 10,000 kids your age doing time in adult prisons in this country?” Arrington asked the student body.
Prison, he said, is not a friendly place to be. On the street, one can run if threatened but in prison, there is no place to run.
“Everyone is afraid, even the very toughest guys,” Arrington said. “You can have someone killed for two cartons of cigarettes.”
Arrington said he was a successful Navy diver and loved his lifestyle but during a stint in Hawaii he fell in with friends who smoked marijuana. He went from smoking it to selling it and eventually was busted.
“I was caught trying to flush marijuana down the toilet. It was stuck to the sides of the toilet bowl and there I was, elbow deep in the toilet trying to shove it down when I was arrested,” Arrington said.
Arrington’s naval career ended that day and he later found himself piloting a private plane only to learn it was for a major cocaine drug pin.
“At one point,” Arrington said before Friday’s assembly, “I was flying a plane with 600 pounds of cocaine on board.”
At first, Arrington said he didn’t know his employer was corrupt but he was eventually sucked into his lifestyle out of fear of death.
His salvation came when he was arrested by a Drug Enforcement Agent as part of the John DeLorean cocaine arrest. (DeLorean was attempting to build the DeLorean car company and used cocaine drug sales as a way of obtaining money for his company.)
Arrington said he plead guilty and served 33 months in prison.
“I promised the judge that I would spend the rest of my life talking to young people about the dangers of drugs and as soon as I got out of prison, that’s what I did,” Arrington said.
After prison, Arrington’s good works eventually led him to a 5 1/2 year stint as lead diver for the famous Costeau Society, leaders in ocean exploration.
During that time Arrington traveled the world, helped with scientific research projects and shot videos for Jacques and Jean Marie Costeau.
Although he has many memories of the adventure, he showed students a video of his most vivid event–encased in a plaxiglass cage chest to chest with a great white shark.
Arrington warned students that drug manufacturers aren’t intelligent and that their business harms their brains the longer they work.
“Honestly, the drug makers I saw in prison couldn’t put two sentences together. They aren’t chemist and they’re putting together chemicals that they want you to put into your body,” Arrington said.
New drugs such as Ectasy can be extremely addictive, Arrington said.
“Research has shown that even using Ectasy just one time has a permanent impact on the brain,” Arrington said.
Teens who try cigarettes, beer and marijuana are 300 times more likely to use hard drugs later in life, Arrington said.
Arrington’s program can be found on the worldwide web at drugsbite.com
In addition to visiting local schools, Arrington spoke to a crowd of more than 200 Wednesday night for the culmination of a week long anti-smoking campaign. Students were awarded first, second and third place trophies in a poster contest.
At the junior high, students led by Bob Teter of the Boys and Girls Club dressed in black and makeup to symbolize dead young people. They didn’t speak to other students and provided an example of how their family and friends would be impacted by their loss.
Grand prize poster winners were Amy Anderson and Kaitlyn Snyder.
Trophy winners by grade, listed first, second and third in each class were:
Holley Elementary
First grade: Amanda McDowell, Emily Laborn, Gavin Redick.
Second grade: Dallas Graham, Mathew Dixon, Emma Knox.
Third grade: Katlin Keenon, Saesha Steinbacher, Donald Rinehart.
Fourth grade: Polly Bond, Renae Conley, Kary Ann Lane.
Fifth grade: Garrett Stewart, Levin Weikel, Kaylee Bruseau.
Sixth grade: Mary Bond, Heather Polley, Nathaniel Goodwin.
Foster Elementary
First grade: Avery Shamek, Krystal Merin, Camille YOung.
Third grade: Miranda Schatz, Cody Harden, Brianna Yost.
Fifth grade: Sarah James, Tausha Shelton, Eric Roentz.
Sixth grade: Lauren Cota, Skyler Samson, Megan Meser.
Crawfordsville Elementary
First grade: David Skeen, Haley Pittser, Cassie Johnson.
Second grade: Marissah Olsen, Robby Miller, Brandi Trewin.
Fifth grade: Brandon Lee Larson, Tony Harden, Tyler Arreguin.
Sixth grade: Ashley Tressel, Chelsea Gregory, Amber Horner.
Oak Heights Elementary
Second grade: Annie Whitfield, Taylor Conn, Dakota Snow.
Fourth grade: Alisah Huschka, James Myers, Hillary McCartin.
Fifth grade: Whitney Stoner, Cheyana Morse, Felicia Singer.
Sixth grade: Michelle Morneault, Page Thomas, Kelsey Agee.