A video created and produced by two Parsons High School sophomores for the Elks Drug Awareness Video Contest won at the local level and has been advanced to the state level.
David Chavez, with Parsons Elks Lodge 527, visited PHS Monday to present Brody Wright and Syrus Clairmont with their awards. Certificates will be forthcoming.
Chavez said the Elks Lodge has done the competition since 1986. However, he said this video was the first submitted in the seven years since he has been chairman. The contest was open to pre-high school and high school students working individually or as a group. Each video submission was to be between two and five minutes.
The Elks also do a drug awareness poster and essay contests annually. The theme this year for all three competitions was “Be Kind to Your Mind – Live Drug Free.” The Elks partner with the Drug Enforcement Agency to get the information out to students.
“I’m very proud of the students, their participation and the high school helping out with doing this,” Chavez said.
Wright and Clairmont said they were encouraged to participate in the contest by their digital media/videography teacher Larrian Kendricks.
Clairmont said they had some down time, so figured they might as well participate in the contest. Kendricks said the two young men jumped on doing the extra work in class.
“I want to thank Ms. Kendricks for participating in this and getting a couple of students to do this,” Chavez added.
The two young men began working on the video project during the fall semester. It was broadcast internally at the high school as a commercial break during the most recently released Viking News episode, allowing peers and staff to see their work.
“It started out with a story board and them just kind of going crazy until we figured out what we could actually make happen,” Kendricks said. “They worked hard on it. I mean non-stop. Their attention to detail is crazy and they’re never going to settle for less.”
Kendricks said Wright and Clairmont will be taking the video to compete with it at SkillsUSA in April. Seeing the two young men were self-starters and that they took the project and ran with it, made Kendricks feel them capable of doing the SkillsUSA competition, where they will compete with students across the state.
In the meantime the two young men will be waiting to hear how their video does at the state Elks Drug Awareness Video Contest. If it wins there, it will be submitted for entry into the National Elks Drug Awareness Video Contest and may be featured on the www.elkskidszone.org website and/or in some publications.
Elks judging of the videos is based on closeness to the theme, neatness, originality, age and language appropriate, positive message, and quality of video.
“We’re excited,” Kendrick said.