Champions take a stand... literally

Above, Champions Club members gathered on the gym floor to publiclydisplay their pledge to be drug-free
-Photo Furnished

“Members of the executive council are asking you to join us on the gym floor if you agree to participate in voluntary random drug testing as being a member of LCHS Champions Against Drugs. Please join us on the gym floor now.”
Those are the words Brittany Doom spoke last Wednesday, which was club day at Lyon County High School. The Champions Club asked its members to take a stand – on the gym floor. Members of club’s executive council met early that morning to finalize their strategy in getting club members to truly commit to a drug-free lifestyle by joining executive council members on the gym floor and agree to put their names on a list for random student drug testing.
“We were really worried that nobody would come down,” said executive council member Brittany Doom. “There are 13 of us on the council, and we knew for sure seven or eight more, and the rest we were not 100 percent sure of.”
“I just simply said, ‘If you’re not serious about what Champions stands for, we’ll give you your money or canned good back that you donated to join.’ We’re not judging anybody, we’re not going to write any names down and go tell the principal or anyone’s parents who didn’t sign up for drug testing,” Doom continued.
All members of the executive council will be drug tested at some point during the school year – they just don’t know when.
Executive council member Alex Bugg said, “We want to take a firm stand and let people know we really mean it. We’re taking a firm approach because there is a problem here, and I think it will help in the long run. We need rules and structure, and the people who are involved in drugs are not people we need in Champions.”
Bugg cited the use of peer pressure for a positive result, rather than the way it is usually perceived.
“I was on the executive council last year, too,” added Savannah P’Poole, “and we were really disappointed that the board said no to the random student drug testing last year. Our sponsor, Dave Baxter, was iffy about pushing for this testing even in our club, but we insisted. It is something we all feel really, really strongly about and we want people to know it.”
“We kept pushing and pushing and he said, ‘I don’t know...’ and we kept on him until he said ‘yes,” P’Poole said.
“Mr. Baxter does support us in what we want to do,” Bugg said. “He is our sponsor but we make the decisions and the policies, not him.”
“He backs us up,” P’Poole added.
Doom added that the executive council felt that some classmates had joined Champions because it is inexpensive (annual dues are $1) and “just to get out of class.” “That’s not what we’re about,” she said, and encouraged those members to find another club. “Let’s understand that we are members of Champions and we are starting a clean slate... we are talking about going forward from this moment on and electing to be drug-free,” she continued. “There will be no talk of hypocrites, no finger pointing, just joining together to help one another stay drug free.”
The council members agreed it was “very cool” to see their peers rise up from the bleachers and make their way to the gym floor.
“They were kind of hesitant at first,” Doom said, “but once the first few started coming down, the rest came on. There were a few that stayed in the bleachers and we were fine with that. I just said, ‘If you’re not comfortable coming down, stay there and talk to me later’, and some of them did,” she said.
A few did not go to the floor because of concerns that their parents might not sign the forms, but in the end only six students remained in the bleachers, compared with 214 on the gym floor.
Baxter, who was reluctant to pursue the subject, said the kids talked him into it and the kids standing together on the gym floor was a sight to behold.
“I said no, let it go for now, and they flat refused,” he said. “These kids know what they want. and they want random student drug testing. It makes sense that if they can’t get it for the whole school, they should be able to at least institute it in a club formed for the sole purpose of keeping themselves and their friends off drugs.”
Baxter said, “The teens of Lyon County are amazing in their willingness to hold one another to these higher standards. They have greater expectations of each other than we adults do.”
Baxter explained the process of random student drug testing during the meeting so that everyone would have a clear understanding of what they were signing up for. Each participating club member’s name will be assigned a number, and the numbers will be entered into a computer program that will randomly draw a number. The person assigned to that number would then be tested, and the sample sent (identified by number only) to a lab outside of Lyon County. When the results are returned, they will be handed over to the parents if the child is under 18 and to the student if he or she is 18 or older. The test results do not go anywhere else – not to the club, the school, or law enforcement, and no copies are kept.
Doom said she feels good about what happened, and the council members agreed it was a fitting coincidence that this public display of commitment took place during Red Ribbon Week.
High school principal Carrol Wadlington was contacted, but declined to comment on the matter.