Crothersville kids get the DARE message

CROTHERSVILLE — Gaby Walters plans to remain drug-free with the help of activities that will keep her mind off drugs, the fifth-grader said as she read her Drug Abuse Resistance Education essay during the Crothersville fifth-grade DARE graduation ceremony Thursday afternoon.

Walters, along with approximately 50 of her classmates from Richard Caldwell’s and Cindy Rider’s classes, celebrated their completion of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department’s DARE program with a ceremony in the cafetorium. The program is taught to fifth-grade students to teach them about the harmful effects of drugs.
“(I learned) not to do drugs, so that you can have a healthy life,” Walters said after the ceremony.

Walters, along with Brittany Clem, read their winning essays during the ceremony. Both girls said they enjoyed learning the DARE curriculum with their classmates.

Excited she won the essay contest, Walters said she tried to make her essay organized, with one paragraph for each topic.

In her essay, she discussed the effects and consequences of using tobacco and marijuana. Clem wrote about the types of peer pressure in her essay.

Jackson County Sheriff’s Department DARE Officer Bob Lucas said the program is all about the children.

“If we can educate these kids now, we won’t be seeing them in our jails in the future,” Lucas said after the program.

“Hopefully, something I have said in the last 10 weeks will stick with these kids,” Lucas, who is in his fourth year of teaching the program, said.

Lucas said this isn’t the last time these kids will see him. He said he plans to check in on them throughout the school year.

Seymour Mayor Craig Luedeman talked to the students about making good and bad decisions about drugs.

He shared a story of three kids growing up, two boys and a girl, two of whom made the right decisions about drugs and a third who did not and is now in trouble with law enforcement.

The girl, Luedeman said, said no to drugs when she was growing up and now has a “great life because she said no when she was younger.”

One of the boys also said no to drugs and joined the U.S. Navy and later became a firefighter.

The second boy, the boy who “had it made” growing up, made bad decisions in high school and was recently arrested during a drug deal.

“Don’t make that bad decision, keep to the DARE vow,” Luedeman said. He told the kids they have challenges and great opportunities ahead of them.

Cameron Williams said the DARE program taught him to stay drug-free.

“I learned to say no to people who ask you to do drugs,” Williams said.

Allison Davidson said the program teaching about drugs as a fifth-grader will help in the future.

“So when we get in high school we won’t take drugs and stuff,” she said.

DARE role models for the class were Crothersville High School seniors Erica Doyle, Kylie Hensley and Chase Ackeret.