On April 22, 2024, FHS gave the students the opportunity to bring awareness to the dangers of drunk driving before prom and in general. Drunk driving is unsafe and puts hundreds of lives at risk. 37 civilians lose their lives every 39 minutes due to the lack of safety from drunk drivers. For this social experiment, students from every class were chosen as “victims” of the Grim Reaper. The victims would paint their faces white, be given a white balloon and were given an identity card to show the name of the victim, their age and how exactly they died from the impact of the driver. Additionally, they were not allowed to talk for the remainder of the day to symbolize the loss of their life.
Annabelle Grady, a 9th grader at FHS, participated in the presentation. She said that the presentation spread good awareness and was a good message to not drive drunk. She also stated that playing along and not being able to talk for the day was difficult but it was fun to see the responses to her being dead “I think people were shocked,” said Grady. Another student, senior Wyatt Shaw, said “I think it was a good message to display especially to kids in high school, it’s kind of hard to wrap your head around especially if you haven’t had something directly happen to you or someone that you had to see the effects of it on.” Shaw played the role of one of the ghosts. He stated, “I was dead for a couple blocks, I was ‘killed’ in a drunk driving accident. I got killed during 1st [block]. I was the first one to get killed.” Sophomore Joel Williams also participated in the presentation that was held. Williams said, “I felt that it brought really good awareness, we haven’t done it in four or five years so nobody really knew about it and it was a good thing to do to bring awareness before prom.” Williams was the grim reaper for the entirety of the second period. “I went through classes every time the bell rang which was every 39 minutes or so. I would pull a person out of class,” said Williams. Williams thought that the presentation was very successful and brought a ton of awareness to the students of FHS “I think it was effective for juniors and seniors and maybe some sophomores and freshmen that are still learning but by the time they are juniors and seniors they will understand,” stated Williams.
With all of this information, the staff is hoping students take this into perspective to not drive under the influence because there is no guarantee that something tragic won’t happen on the road. Drive safe.
