RHS students receive life lesson
“Don’t drink and drive” is a lesson that most high school and college students will hear more than once as they progress toward adulthood, but Sept. 13 students at Russellville High School received a real-life example of why they need to heed that lesson.
Former top-ranking tennis player Blake McMeans made a stop at the RHS auditorium to speak with the students about his personal experience with drinking and driving. “I am here to inspire you to make better decisions than I made,” McMeans said.
A short video documentary of his testimony was played before he approached the podium to speak.
McMeans was a No. 4 nationally-ranked tennis player before he even started college. The University of Tennessee awarded him a full scholarship. Unfortunately, he never got the chance to fulfill that opportunity.
In November 1994, McMeans recounted, he crashed his car one night driving home drunk from a bar. The wreck left him physically and mentally injured. He spent four months in a coma; it took him one year to re-learn how to make sound, five years to re-learn how to make sentences and seven years to re-learn how to stand up.
“I am now living with the consequences of my choices,” McMeans said.
He revealed that he began drinking at the young age of 12 when he would steal alcohol from his parents’ liquor cabinet, and by the time he reached high school, he had developed a steady pattern of drinking every weekend.
“I didn’t realize I was gambling with my future, and now my future is drastically different,” he said.
Many decisions made by high school students are impacted by peer pressure – one thing McMeans said fueled his drinking. He said drinking made him feel accepted, but once his life was irrevocably changed by it, those friends disappeared.
McMeans now makes it his mission through the Blake McMeans Foundation and Promise Tour to speak to high school students about how “drinking and acting irresponsibly can cost you your future,” as he put it.
He encourages people to use ride shares like Uber if they plan on drinking. If an Uber customer uses the code BlakeMcMeans, proceeds go toward the Blake McMeans Foundation.
McMeans has also created a scholarship for seniors that he said can be found on his website, www.blakemcmeans.com. To apply, the student must plan to enroll full time at an accredited college or university, be an outstanding student in their chosen field with a demonstrated record of community service and leadership and have a minimum grade points average of 3.2, in addition to maintaining a 3.0 grade point average in their chosen college or university.
State Farm sponsored the event, which was organized by Alisha Holland, office manager at Diana Fisher’s State Farm office in Russellville.
“When the opportunity came up, I knew it was an important message that needed to be heard by more than just the juniors and seniors, so we asked the whole high school student body to attend,” Holland said.
McMeans took time to answer students’ questions at the end of the event and stayed around afterward to speak to people individually, as well.
