Monrovia High School's Every 15 Minutes Program 2015 was a success!

Every 15 Minutes
By Bailey Bryant

Every 15 minutes is a two-day program focusing on high school juniors and seniors, which challenges them to think about drinking, driving, personal safety, and the responsibility of making mature decisions. Along with alcohol-related crashes, it focuses on the impact that their decisions would have on family and friends. Thanks to the hard work of Monrovia High School Senior and ASB president, Jazmine Diaz, the students and staff and the surrounding businesses and organizations in Monrovia who has been planning the event since her sophomore year, Monrovia High School was able to put on this event on May 20th and 21st. Every fifteen minutes a bell would toll over the loudspeaker on campus to signify the death of an individual due to an alcohol induced crash. As the bells rang out a Grim Reaper entered the classrooms of eleven students who were taken and pronounced dead. As students traveled from classroom to classroom they noticed gravestones appearing in the quad, each one containing the names of a student “taken” that day.

Around twelve o’clock a 911 call was played over the loud speakers stating that there had been an accident just out front of Monrovia High School. Juniors and Seniors were asked to be released from class and were seated in bleachers on Colorado Blvd., in front of campus. Before the upperclassmen was a shocking scene: a car accident including Sanaya Kateli, Wyatt Gray, Austin Newton, Caitie Kline in one vehicle and Nick Miranda, Cole Mossbrooks and Edwin Aviles in the other. On the side of the road Taylor Barstow stood over Jasmine Maciel who had played a pedestrian and had been caught up in the accident as well. Students watched as their friends were rescued by local firefighters and police officers and Austin Newton was pronounced dead and taken to the morgue. The bleachers were deathly silent as Sanaya Kateli, a survivor of the accident, cried over her injured friend and boyfriend and quieter still as Nick Miranda, who had been “drunkenly” driving and crashed the car, was questioned and arrested.

“It was really strange to see all my friends like that,” says Senior Annie McGeeney, “you never really think you’ll see your friends die. Even if it is all fake, it’s really unsettling and sobering.”

The next day a memorial service was held for the students who had passed away. Certain students who had “died” the day before read letters to their families and friends and were met with similar letters from their own parents and siblings. Many tears were shed within the first few minutes of the service and they only continued as the service went on. A speaker, Joshua Jahn, stood in the Louis K. Taylor auditorium and shared his own personal story with the students of Monrovia High School. Joshua told the story of the loss of his wife and two children at the hands of a drunk driver. He ended his story by showing a video of his family which brought tears to the eyes of almost everyone in the audience. At the end of the service students rushed to the front teary-eyed to reunite with their friends that had “died” and spent the night in the hotel to maintain the illusion. Senior Caitie Kline who participated in the activity and was a “victim” of a drunk driver says “the experience was really eye-opening in that my actions don’t just affect myself, but, actually affect everyone around me”.