FCCLA organizes drunk driving project

By SHARON KIESEL

Three Adrian students presented the highlights of their FCCLA project during a high school assembly on Tuesday, November 24. Guest speaker for the event was Bates County Memorial Hospital medic, Kelly Phillips.

The project, “Every Fifteen Minutes”, focused on the effects of drunk driving and the statistics that every 15 minutes someone dies in an alcohol-related incident. The girls, Katarina Welch, Heather Greer and Whitney Bagby spent the past three weeks putting everything together.

On Tuesday, November 24, every fifteen minutes a student was chosen from a classroom. That student then, for the rest of the school day, wore a white t-shirt with some alcohol/driving-related statistic. The student also wore white face makeup and could not speak, to emphasis someone who had died in an alcohol involved accident.

The 20 minute assembly, for grades 9-12, was held during the school’s Blackhawk time. Speaker Kelly Phillips brought several props for his talk but the most impressive one was the ambulance stretcher with a shrouded ‘body’, complete with toe tag.

“What can you as one individual do to help with alcohol-related incidents?” he asked. “There’s a time and a place to simply say, “No”.

Pictured, left to right: Payton Wilson, a walking dead participant; Kelly Phillips, Medic; Heather Greer, FCCLA member; Katarina Welch, FCCLA member; Whitney Bagby, FCCLA.