Our View: Make memories – not tragedies – at prom

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We’re smack-dab in the middle of prom season: Woodbury High School just wrapped its event, while students and staff at East Ridge High School prepare for their prom.

It’s a cherished time for teens who look at the event as a chance to kick up their heels with friends and enjoy a night they’ll never forget. That’s the right spirit.

Unfortunately, too many young people are bound to include the wrong spirits – in the literal sense – when celebrating prom. As is all too common, some students will stash away booze for limo rides and hotel sleepovers. Some folks might be willing to begrudgingly accept the tradition if all it meant was raising a champagne toast and calling it a night. But that’s rarely the case.

When teens and alcohol mix, it just doesn’t add up to moderation. The sad reality is that every prom season we’re met with headlines including that awful combination of words: Teen. Alcohol. Crash. Fatal.

And that’s why we are reminding parents to implore their teens to keep safety at the top of the list before they straighten those ties and put the finishing touches on those hairdos.

Woodbury High School showed it’s taking the issue seriously by issuing Breathalyzers to at the door Saturday at prom.

East Ridge students will get a healthy dose of reality Thursday when a mock crash is staged at the school.

Mock crashes can be startling and – to some – disturbing. That’s the point. Sirens wail. Victims scream. Drivers are handcuffed. Stretchers take away the dead and wounded.

It’s as close as any teen should get to the real thing.

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