For Release: Immediate  Date: December 13, 2002

Contact: Assistant ALE Director Ken Pike 919-733-4060 pager 800-412-7851

Fayetteville - The Grim Reaper will be visiting Northwood Temple Academy on Tues. Dec. 17 to make students aware that alcohol use by teens is not just illegal, it can be deadly.

The N.C. Division of Alcohol Law Enforcement is presenting the Keys To Life program which stresses that every 15 minutes in America someone is grievously injured or killed in an alcohol-related traffic accident.

After the students assemble in the auditorium at 9:30 a.m., a heartbeat is played over the school's PA system every 15 minutes. An ALE agent portraying the Grim Reaper then appears and takes one of the students away. The selected students’ faces are made up with gray face paint and they wear black t-shirts to symbolize their deaths. The students are then escorted back to the assembly and their obituary read aloud to classmates.

“This dramatic program helps reinforce the fact that drinking is dangerous, and too often deadly,” said ALE Director Mike Robertson. “High school students are at a vulnerable age where they have the ability to make good decisions or bad decisions. The Keys to Life program can make a lasting impression, one we hope that will help prevent tragedies.”

First Lady Mary Easley will also address the assembled students on the dangers of alcohol abuse.

Outside, from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m., a mock wreck scene is staffed with EMS, fire and rescue crews, the Sheriff's Dept., Police Dept., and the State Highway Patrol. News crews will also be on the scene to simulate the drama of a fatal accident.

From 11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., students can participate in ALE’s Drunk Busters golf cart program. Students maneuver a golf cart through an obstacle course of traffic cones. Then they drive the course again while wearing specially-designed impairment goggles that alter the vision and depth perception of the participant, mimicking the symptoms of alcohol intoxication.

Northwood Temple Academy, a private high school, is located at 4200 Ramsey Street. For more information contact Assistant Director Ken Pike at 919-733-4060 or pager 800-412-7851.

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