The students at Woodrow Wilson High School are planning a special prom for 1994. Along with choosing a date and picking the perfect outfit, they are encouraging one another to sign the Prom Promise Pledge.
Prom Promise, sponsored by Nationwide Insurance, is a positive peer-pressure program for high school students. It encourages them to sign a pledge not to use alcohol or drugs, especially on prom night. The program’s mission is to eliminate fatalities and injuries due to teenage drunk driving.
In 1993, Nationwide Insurance introduced Prom Promise to three schools in the Dallas area. For 1994, more than 20 area schools are “making the pledge.” More than three million students in 3,000 high schools will be reached by the program nationwide.
This will be Woodrow’s first year to participate. Woodrow students and faculty were at the March 8 Dallas Mavericks game to kick off the 1994 Prom Promise Campaign. The 1993 winning school, W.T. White, was awarded its first place prize by Jim Jackson of the Dallas Mavericks at half-time.
Prom Promise will start at Woodrow in the few weeks prior to prom. Activities will be coordinated by Bradley Sue Howell, librarian and senior sponsor; Eduardo Torres, principal; Lucious Newhouse, assistant principal; and the student council.
Woodrow students and faculty will plan activities to create an awareness of the seriousness of mixing alcohol and/or drugs while driving. The students are expected to be creative in their approach in encouraging each other to sign the pledge.
Last year, one school had a costumed Grim Reaper designate an appropriate percentage of students as drunk driving victims. At another school, a three-part commercial aired over the school’s cable system questioning what could possibly be more stupid than drinking and driving.
Tables were set up throughout the schools for students to sign pledge cards not to drink on prom night.
The students document the Prom Promise campaign efforts in a scrapbook. As sponsor, Nationwide Insurance will provide Woodrow with comprehensive program materials and cash awards, which are presented to schools with the highest percentage of student participants and the most creative scrapbook documentation.
To date, Nationwide Insurance proudly reports that there has not been one reported fatality or accident to any student who made the Prom Promise Pledge.
