RBHS hosts Kick Butts Day
By Brandi Miller for the FCT
Students at Red Bay High School joined thousands of other students around the United States in March as they took part in Kick Butts Day.
The day is set aside to encourage young people to be tobacco free, reject tobacco companies’ marketing and urge elected officials to help make the next generation of children completely smoke free. In Alabama, tobacco use claims 8,600 lives and costs $1.88 billion in health care costs. The hope is that through events like the Kick Butts Day, students at RBHS can reduce that number as much as possible.
The Kick Butts Health Fair was geared for grades 3-12 and was held in the RBHS auditorium. This is the first year for the event, but hopes are that it will become an annual event, given the success of this year’s fair.
“I was really impressed with how well each of the presenters at the booths interacted with students during the learning activities,” said RBHS tobacco grant coordinator Christopher Hargett. “The booths were mostly student-centered because the health fair is all about the students.”
The health fair consisted of educational booths, and students rotated among the booths throughout the day learning about the various harmful effects of tobacco and asking questions to the presenters. Hargett represented the booth for secondhand smoke and cessation of smoking; Chris Willis represented the booth for Air Evac and Medflight; and Lamont Dupree represented the booth for North Alabama A-HEC. RBHS seniors Tate Ozbirn and Skylar Rogers represented the booth for the Tobacco Prevention program, and RBHS junior and HOSA state officer Savannah Shaw represented the HOSA booth. RBHS junior Drent Robbins represented the SADD booth. The Junior SADD officers – Lawson Glover, Will West, Braden Holcombe, Gretchen Davis and Cassidy Aldridge, represented a smokeless tobacco booth.
Sonya Faulkner had a booth representing the Red Bay Hospital, and Anna Duncan had a booth representing the American Cancer Society.
At each booth students were able to ask questions and see demonstrations. Most of the booths consisted of hands-on activities for the students as well as educational materials they could take with them.
Besides the booths at the health fair, RBHS students were able to see the MedFlight helicopter as it landed on the football field. Elementary students had the opportunity to look inside the helicopter and sit in the pilot’s seat.
Hargett said a special thanks to Dr. Kay Hargett and Dr. Jacqueline Parsons for assisting with the health fair and helping to make it such a success. HOSA and SADD President and RBHS senior Antonio Patterson was also instrumental in the success and captured pictures throughout the day.
“I really feel that students learned a wealth of knowledge about the health effects of cigarette smoking and hope they will encourage people in their local communities not to smoke cigarettes.”
