The week of October 24th was Red Ribbon Week, and the Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) club brought in a guest speaker to speak to the sophomore class. The sophomores had the opportunity to learn about destructive decisions from paramedic, Navy veteran, and firefighter, Ennis Jackson. This entertaining and humorous, yet serious and emotional, presentation was held in the lecture hall.

Jackson began his presentation with playful jokes about minor destructive decisions. He called upon a few male students to act as though they were drunk and wanted to drive a car, but were stopped by their wives.

These comical situations were quickly replaced by more serious and more dangerous scenarios. Jackson played the sophomores a slideshow of incredibly graphic images of damages resulting from destructive decisions. These included pictures of mangled bodies trapped inside crushed vehicles and videos of people getting directly hit by speeding cars.

“Violence leads to more violence,” Jackson said.

Throughout the presentations, Jackson encouraged the students to avoid these types of situations by opposing peer pressure. Jackson said, “The number one killer of teenagers is teenagers.”

As the presentation went on, Jackson began to speak of more personal situations. He spoke to the sophomores about his daughter who was tragically raped and killed. Going through this tragedy gave Jackson an even greater motivation to continue to speak to young people about avoiding destructive decisions.

Jackson’s presentation encouraged the sophomores to have the courage to stand up for themselves in pressuring situations. Jackson said, “Take life serious. Take yourself serious…believe in yourself and try.”