By Matt Browning
At the beginning of each school year, the Ark City SAFE program has a signup day where sponsor Adam Utt promotes all of the perks and benefits of the club.
From there, the club has multiple events throughout the year for the school.
“Most of the students in my club were either in it with me last year or they were in the club at middle school,” Utt said. “Most of my students are freshmen with a few from the sophomore and junior classes. I have no seniors.”
Most of the events they put on deal with safety belt usage and make smart decisions on the road.
“We have done the baseline and second set of the SAFE seatbelt surveys,” Utt said. “I took a group of 11 students to Manhattan for the SAFE conference. Last year we were able to get Think Fast to come and visit the juniors and seniors. The students wanted to plan a mock car accident around prom time, but we have to wait till next school year to plan this.”
Utt said one of his best memories of his SAFE group was at Arkalalah last year.
“I told the kids to make sure they dressed for the weather,” Utt said. “It was cold and misty and not a single one of them listened to me. But they had fun doing it and were troopers throughout it. They also ran out of candy to throw out into the crowd not even a third of the way through the parade.”
