Red Ribbon Week was organized by the Leadership class this year to raise drug-free awareness. Suggested by Leadership students, they wanted to specifically focus on heroin.

“Within the last couple years we have lost people due to heroin abuse and overdoses, drug overdoses and we really wanted to emphasize that heroin is a problem here,” Leadership member Shelby Arnold said.

On Monday, Oct. 24, a previous SCHS student, Grayson Vaughn, came in and told his story of heroin addiction and recovery.

“We wanted to drive the point home of that there are students here and past students who have used heroin and who have almost died from it,” Leadership member Chloe Lueke said. “We hoped people could relate like ‘Oh I know other people who are smoking pot, drinking every weekend, or shooting up heroin.’”

On Tuesday, Oct. 25, students could pay $1 to wear a hat to school to support teens recovering from drug addiction.

“The money is going to purchases of hygiene items to be donated to a local drug rehab center,” Leadership sponsor Courtney LaChance-Denton said.

On Wednesday, Oct. 26, each AIP decorated their classroom door to try to give the best interpretation of the week’s theme.

“I saw some really cute doors. One door said ‘Pugs Not Drugs’ another was like ‘Let’s scare away the drugs,’” Lueke said. “People really took it seriously.”

The winners of the door decorating contest were determined based on cuteness, creativity, YOLO and an overall winner was also chosen. Charles Meeker’s AIP won for cuteness, Rodney Orrick’s AIP won for creativity, Ben Owen’s AIP won for YOLO and the overall winner was Katie Kilker’s AIP.

On Thursday, Oct. 26, Leadership members planned a blackout day where students would come to school dressed in all black and previously selected students would be removed from class and returned at a later point. Due to outside circumstances, Denton was unable to supervise this event, resulting in its cancellation.

“We were going to do a dead-day, where we pulled students out of class and when they returned they were not allowed to speak to represent those who died of overdose,” Lueke said.

On Friday, Oct. 27, students and faculty wore red shirts to support being drug free.

“People more subtly participated rather than outwardly participating,” Arnold said. “It was kind of an easier spirit week where you aren’t like dressing up in a costume or anything.”