After the 2010 Cook County D.A.R.E. graduation on Friday, May 21, students gathered outside for a traditional photo to show off their D.A.R.E. caps and T-shirts. D.A.R.E. stands for drug abuse resistance education. Students completed 17 weeks of coursework to learn how to avoid drug and alcohol use and violence.
The 2010 Cook County D.A.R.E. graduation was held on Friday, May 21 at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. Chief Deputy Leif Lunde congratulated the students for completing the DARE curriculum and announced some exciting news about the DARE poster contest. Entry in the poster contest is voluntary, but all 52 of this year’s DARE students entered. Lunde was happy to announce that two Cook County DARE students finished in the top 25 out of the hundreds of entries across the state. Megan Johnson finished in 20th place and Madysen McKeever finished in 10th place.
Deputy Lunde asked the girls to come on stage and he presented them with medals. They also received free tickets for the waterpark at the Mall of America.
Lunde said the “final exam” for DARE is an essay in which students must share what they learned in DARE. He said, “I want them to tell me what they learned. I don’t want facts copied out of the workbook. I want to hear how they are going to use DARE in their lives.”
Above: Cook County Chief Deputy and DARE officer Leif Lunde with the students whose essays won them the grand prize— the DARE lion mascot. (L-R) Melanie Smith, Lunde, Douglas Pervais. Left: Lunde was very happy to announce poster contest winners Megan Johnson (left) and Madysen McKeever.
Lunde said all of the essays were good, but the two selected to receive the DARE “gold medal,” the friendly DARE stuffed lion, were Melanie Smith and Douglas Pervais. See their essays below.
Cook County Schools Superintendent Beth Schwarz was the guest speaker and she shared the sad story of one of her former students who had a bright future but lost all his dreams because of a bad decision about alcohol. She punctuated her speech with the encouraging message, “Stop! Think! Make healthy decisions.”
Schwarz encouraged the student to make a pact to remain drug and alcohol free. “Wouldn’t it be neat,” she asked, “if seven years from now you could all say, ‘Remember when that new superintendent— what’s her name—challenged us to stay drug and alcohol free?’ Wouldn’t it be cool if you could say you did it?”
Students then received their DARE graduation certificates, as well as a DARE hat, T-shirt, and bag handed to them by Schwarz, Deputy Lunde, Principal Gwen Carman, and Sheriff Mark Falk.
Congratulations
D.a.r.e. Graduates
Zoey Anderson
Jaden Aubid
Krissy Backstrom
Logan Backstrom
Jacob Bilben
Jacob Bjerkness
Hanna Borson
Jesse Breitsprecher
Gracie Christenson
Jayson Christenson
Jared DeHart
Maranda Deschampe
Mariah Deschampe
Annika Erickson
Kylor Greene
Tarin Hanson
Taylor Hartung
Marin Hay
Emily Jacobsen
Joe James
Jamie Johnson
Megan Johnson
William Lamb
Erik Lawler
Julia Larsen
Danny Lewis
Harleigh Lindquist
David Logan
Marcus Logan
Alyssa Martinson
Madysen McKeever
John Mendivil
William Owens
Douglas Pervais
Thomas Rankin
Joey Scheiblauer
Joseph Semhric
Brooke Sherer
Molly Sietsema
Alicia Smith
Melanie Smith
Sarah Smith
Autumn Sturm
Thomas Swanson
Molly Thomas
Hannah Toftey
Sarah Toftey
Hannah VanderHeiden
Jack Viren
Shylan Vondall
Kyle Wiegele
Damian Zimmer
D.A.R.E. to resist drugs and violence
Melanie Ann Smith, 5th grade
Of the hundreds of posters submitted by DARE students around the state, Madysen McKeever’s poster won 10th place.
DARE is a group of lessons that teach us how to resist peer pressure and to live drug free and violence free lives. Officer Lunde led the DARE lessons. The goal of the program is to prevent drug abuse and violence among us. It provides us with information about alcohol and drugs and to say, “No!” to them.
DARE shows us other healthy things to do instead of just hanging out and it gives us life skills to resist peer pressure.
DARE teaches us about the dangers of drugs. DARE teaches us to keep our bodies healthy and to control our feelings when we’re angry or stressed out. I enjoyed participating in the DARE program, Officer Lunde made it fun and interesting.
I plan to resist peer pressure and to continue drug abuse resistance education. I will do more educational and physical activities to remain healthy and active.
The most hated things in the world— drugs and violence
Douglas Pervais
The most important things I learned in DARE is to never try drugs unless it’s prescribed medicine because you could give yourself lung cancer from smoking and if you drink beer or any other alcohol beverages you could possibly get drunk and you wouldn’t know what you are doing.
The second most important thing I learned is that you should get out of situations that get you in trouble like having alcohol.
The feeling that I have about DARE is weirdness because I have relatives that smoke and sometimes drink and it reminds me of a person I know who smokes and that person died at least one or two years ago and having to go to DARE just reminds me of the relatives that both smoke and drink.
I am going to try to remain drug and violence free by staying away from people who smoke and people who drink for their own purposes, so I can have a healthy life. I would rather entertain myself by reading instead of doing drugs. I also think that drugs are for people that don’t have a good life.
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