The week of October 25th, 2021, brought Red Ribbon Week to Monticello High School. In order to inform the community on the consequences of underage drinking and doing drugs, Monticello Lifesavers went to each school, bringing lessons to the classrooms. One activity was saved for the high school alone.
On Friday 25th, the students participated in Angel of Death Day. Every twenty one minutes, a student was tapped on the shoulder by the Grim Reaper. The student who was tapped would then put on a black cloak and remain silent for the remainder of the day. This activity was derived from the fact that one American teen dies every twenty one minutes due to underage drinking.
“Well, Lifesavers started doing the Grim Reaper multiple years ago, so we didn’t come up with the idea, but the Red Ribbon Week committee thought it would be great to bring it back this year because we thought it was really effective our freshman year,” said Cara Johnson, one of the students charged with the task of tapping other students.
“The intent behind it is to represent a teen who dies in a ratio of time from teen drinking. Having a student die and no longer be able to talk for the rest of the day shows other classmates what it would be like if they were to lose a close friend or classmate and how it could affect their lives no longer being able to speak to them,” explained Johnson.
It seemed the intent was well served as many ‘killed students’ struggled throughout the day to stay silent.
Reagan Pyatt, one of ‘deceased’ students, shared, “The hardest part was having to not talk with friends that tried really hard to make you talk.”
The idea behind Grim Reaper was enforced again with the non-dead students realizing the impact that underage drinking had on their day to day lives.
“I didn’t know how many were gonna be killed, and the number was a little shocking. They were all people that everyone talks to everyday,” non-dead student Vidhi Patel commented, “Jobi (another student who was killed) and I go to American government together, and we always talk there. And we couldn’t really talk, so it was just a little hard.”
Louisa Rudolph, Staff Writer rudlo24@sages.us
The Sage Informer 
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