September 25, 2002

Students film SADD video

Central High School group confronts the perils of drunk driving

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       Confronting a parents' worst nightmare, students in Traverse City Central High School's Students Against Drunk Driving created a new video viscerally bringing home the perils of drunk driving.
      The film chronicles the lives of four students: one who gets behind the wheel after a party, runs a red light and causes an accident that kills her three friends. This driver, played by Ashley Barnes, a 2002 graduate, is booked at the Traverse City Police Department. She later meets with a Mike Lewis, an area lawyer, who explains the case and penalties to her.
      The final scene has Barnes meeting her friends at the Jonkhoff-Reynolds Funeral Home. There, all students then read letters apologizing to their parents and friends for their actions, wishing for a second chance.
      The other three actors, Jake Erway, Jared Conaway and Chelsea Conrad, are all eleventh grade students. Pat Bowen, advisor for the SADD group, conceived of the idea, and Joshua Schaub, a 2002 CHS graduate, filmed it.
      The SADD club screened the 30-minute video, which was shot in the spring, last Tuesday afternoon. Club members are hoping for approval to show the film to the school and may try to get it screened on tctv2.
      "It's going to have an impact, especially on my friends," said Taryn Grant, a senior who attended the premier and a first year member of SADD. "I bawled my eyes out. I know people who drink and drive."
      Writing a letter to your parents, saying goodbye and apologizing for getting in a car with a drunk driver proved to be a challenge to the three casualties. Sitting in a room, pencil and paper in hand, at first the exercise was embarrassing, silly. As the words unfolded onto paper, however, the students found voice for their sorrow and love - their role had become real.
      "You don't really think about how many of your friends drive drunk, you always hear about the kid who escapes, you never hear about the ones who hit the tree and die," Conaway said.
      Bowen agreed that the letters really brought home the impact of their actions to the actors.
      "When they started out it wasn't serious, they were kind of flip with their answers," she noted. "Then, when we started to write the letters, it became serious. Once they sat down, you could see their faces, their emotions change."
      At the funeral home, Dan Jonkhoff had set up caskets covered with flowers topped with a picture of each 'deceased' students. As a final surprise, Bowen and Schaub had the students' parents participate in this scene. They arrived with letters of their own in hand and tears flowed on all sides as parents and children read their good-byes and regrets.
      "If only I could go back to that moment before the phone rang, but I can't," said Marlene Conaway, Jared's mother.
      "The unthinkable has happened, the knock on our door has come," said Gerald Erway, Jake's father. "We will not be seeing you today or for the rest of our tomorrow's. The light is gone from our lives."
      For Joshua Schaub, the chance to write, produce and direct a film that could impact so many lives was satisfying. Being behind the camera, however, provided some distance. It was not until he began editing last spring that the power of the movie came home to him.
      "I didn't notice how people changed until the editing," he said. "Pat and I talked about the movie in advance, she told me what she was planning for the scenes."