SADD club promotes better decisions

Anthony Pope, a Stuarts Draft Elementary School student, finally met one of his role models Friday morning at Stuarts Draft High School, and the meeting of about 10 minutes was all he wished it would be.

“He took it good,” Anthony said of his message to Stuarts Draft High senior Billy Mikolay, 18.

The smiling 8-year-old had written Mikolay a congratulatory letter for making it through high school. He also reminded the graduating student, 10 years his elder, to not “drink bad stuff” and drive.

The second-grader was among 92 others, plus 45 first-graders, who participated in the joint venture between the generations Friday. It was the culmination of a year’s worth of student work from the SDHS Students Against Destructive Decisions club.

Isaac Welk, 8, a cellphone owner and user, also had a message for his senior.

On Thursday, he said he put in his letter: “Don’t text and drive,” along with, “Don’t make wrong decisions.”

Andrew Lawhorne and Nicholas May, both 8, and classmates of Pope and Welk, also included other advice in their letters.

“Don’t smoke, or drink and drive,” said Lawhorne.

“Make sure you graduate from high school,” May said.

The boys knew how important their messages to the seniors could be.

“I think more second-graders should do this,” May said.

Martha Mikell, SDHS SADD advisor, was happy the elementary-school kids were getting the message.

The boys’ teacher, Denise Ford, said that all the children had been happy and excited to participate in the letter-writing campaign.

“My class talked about being safe, graduating and driving,” Ford said. “[The project] may be a reward for the seniors, but it definitely has been for the second graders.”

Ford notified Mikell that an unintentional, additional message had been generated to the 7- and 8-year-olds, one of making it through high school and to graduation.

Mikell said that the graduation message was neat because, “People think there are no role models anymore. The seniors are it and they up to them.”

Mikolay thought it was nice to get children involved in the project “at such a young age.”

“We saw the seniors as role models when we were preschoolers,” he said.

The whole project got Welk thinking about his and his friends’ futures.

“If you don’t go to high school, you’ll be a hobo or something,” he said.

Mikell said the point of the club and all its work was to get the word out to the kids and the community at large about better decision-making skills.

In that vein, her club joined forces in the fall with Youth of Virginia Speak Out, an organization of youth leaders focused on saving the lives of teen drivers, participating in a couple of its programs and competitions.

“We won the fall competition on buckling up,” Mikell said. “In March, we found out about the competition to make a video and submit it. We were among the first 200 schools to do that and won $200 for it.”

The club is waiting to hear if they won the most nods in the online voting portion of the YOVASO spring competition. If they do, it will mean $10,000 for the student organization.

“We will hear on Tuesday whether we won or not,” Mikell said. “If not, second-, third- and fourth-place winners will receive $5,000 each.”

The video entry SDHS SADD team sent to YOVASO depicted a texting and driving simulator experiment the students did in March, which gave students who participated electronic readouts of what results transpired from their time in the simulator. Only two or three people (including teachers who participated) did not receive tickets for vehicular manslaughter or a major collision during the computerized driving exams held over two days at the school.

Not only did it open the eyes of the students, said Mikell, four community organizations stepped up to sponsor 100 percent of the event financially.

In May, before the senior prom held at Fairfax Hall in Waynesboro, the SADD club held its most poignant and hard-hitting event.

With the help of the Stuarts Draft Fire and Rescue Squad, Virginia State Police Department and the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, the high school held a mock car crash for its juniors and seniors at the school track and football field.

Four students were involved in the “accident,” two of which were “transported” after extrication to medical facilities in ambulances on scene.

One student, Wesley Henderson, was declared “dead” at the scene and had a sheet placed over him while he was still seated in the driver’s seat of his car, front and center before the audience.

Another youngster, Erika Evans was taken to a nearby location down the track, in front of the crowd, for examination by the sheriff for intoxication after a bag of alcoholic-beverage containers were found in her vehicle. The law enforcement officer gave her a couple of balance quizzes and spoke with her briefly after which, he asked her to turn around and place her hands behind her back. The sheriff placed handcuffs on her and led her away to his vehicle “to be jailed.”

As the young woman was driven away, another student, located in the school’s field house above the group of students in the stands, read a “letter” from the arrested student. It was from some point in her future when she would have been incarcerated. The epistle included an apology to all the students involved in the accident, especially the young man whose life had been snuffed out.

A previously murmuring crowd of students stopped their chatter and listened in silence.

SDHS football coach Rod Bowers followed with a message from everyone involved with the extraordinary lesson.

“We’re doing what we do because we love you,” he said. “If you choose to drink and drive, or get in the car with someone who does, you’re playing Russian roulette with your life.”

Briana Wolters, a senior and member of SADD for two years, said she felt that students got the message. She was the student who read the epiphany letter.

“When they saw Wesley dead, and the other kids get taken out to ambulances,” she said, “I certainly hope they took it seriously.”

She would know. She had a friend that had wrecked their car, and it was hard on her.

“To lose someone you’re close to, who is a family member, is hard,” she said. “But a classmate is even harder. Not only that, but why would you want to put others in danger?”