“I don’t think,” a fellow Bryan Adams High School student recently told senior Amy Puckett, “that you’ll find students who want to spend graduation night locked into a school building without drinking alcohol.”
Amy believes otherwise. And shaken by the recent death of a Bryan Adams honors graduate in an alcohol-related automobile accident, she plans to prove it.
Amy has organized the June 1 Bryan Adams Graduation Lock-In, featuring dancing, movies and door prizes, in an effort to prevent classmates from making a similar, tragic mistake.
“Normally, to celebrate graduation, students go out drinking,” says Amy, 18. “Different people have parties, and more than likely, people aren’t going to stay where they are drinking. And once they’ve been drinking, their thoughts change, and no one really wants to be the designated driver.”
“It’s one of those, ‘it won’t happen to me’ things. It’s a one-in-a-million chance, and no one expects to be that one.”
Following the spring automobile accident, Amy began organizing an alcohol-free graduation party in an effort to prevent another tragedy.
Amy, who plans to study business at the University of Texas in Austin this fall, met with student leaders to plan the event. She has solicited donations from companies such as Pepsi, I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt, AMC Towne Crossing, Jupiter Lanes, Chili’s and J.T. McCord’s. She and other students have raised more than $675.
And, more importantly, she spent a week obtaining pledges from 250 of this year’s 317-student graduating class to attend the party, which starts at 10 p.m. Beginning at midnight, the doors will be locked, and the students will party together until 7 a.m. under the supervision of parents and faculty members.
The party will be known as a “MORP,” which is prom spelled backwards.
“It’ll be the opposite of a prom,” Amy says.
Rather than encouraging students to dress up, this party’s theme is “trashed out,” beginning with the crumpled-newspapers-on-the-floor décor and continuing through the 64 empty pizza boxes that will litter the floor following dinner.
Planned events include basketball and volleyball competition, a senior slide show, board and card games, eating contests and a student talent show.
Will the students who have signed up for this party actually show up?
“I don’t know,” says Amy, who also is a member of an anti-drug-use group at Adams. “I guess we’ll find out.”
And how does she feel about spearheading a drive to help prevent drinking and driving?
“Well, it’s hard sometimes, because when I walk down the school halls, well…
“I guess I am a do-gooder, but it’s not so much a bad thing anymore. It’s not nerdish to be involved.”
