Kids get high on life during Red Ribbon Week

Danette Goulet

NEWPORT BEACH -- Red Ribbon Week at Mariners Elementary School ended on

an extremely high note Friday morning.

As the finale to the weeklong anti-drug campaign celebrated by schools in

the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, the Mariners PTA brought Gale

Webb’s “Ride Hard -- Ride Safe” extreme sports show to campus.

On in-line skates, skateboards and BMX bikes, daredevils gained momentum

as they flung themselves up the ramps and into the air. For students, all

were role models, the youngest of which is only 8 years old.

One of the main messages of the show was “get high on life, not drugs.”

The energy level was certainly high among students.

Hundreds of little voices shouted and cheered as five extreme sports

athletes flew up the steep 10-foot skate ramps set up on the playground’s

blacktop.

“I loved it when they were flipping and all that,” said 5-year-old Alex

Maher, who solemnly agreed with their anti-drug message.

The sports show for kids was founded by Gale Webb with an initial

emphasis on safety.

“Parents were buying their kids skateboards with no safety gear,” Webb

said. “The kids were getting hurt and parents wanted to ban skateboards

when the problem was safety.”

The lessons Webb wanted to teach children reached far beyond safety,

however. Webb was in a skydiving accident many years before when her main

parachute failed to open. Webb broke her neck, back, legs and sustained

brain damage in the mishap.

She had to learn to walk and speak all over again.

“I made it through, but not alone,” she said. “The kids in the hospital

are the ones that helped me. That’s what my whole show is about -- kids.”

Webb wants to encourage kids to follow their goals and dreams, live life

and know that they can do anything they set their minds to, she said. And

so the anti-drug message has been a part of her show for years.

“It’s Red Ribbon Week here this week, but it’s Red Ribbon Week every

day of their life,” she said.

Judging from the more than 700 entranced faces, Webb and her group are

getting through to young people.

“I say all the same things that all moms and dads do. I just say it

different,” Webb said.

Students at Lincoln Elementary School had festivities of their own

Friday, with the judging of their classroom doors decorated for Red

Ribbon Week, and with a celebration “Boo Blast” costume parade.

All the goblins, witches, princesses, bugs and dragons had one thing in

common -- they all wore red wristbands. Some of the little ghouls even

had red T-shirts on under their costumes.

The culmination of the week for students at Lincoln came when their

decorated classroom doors were judged. The prize for the best door was a

pizza party at Joe’s Place.

One fourth-grade class chose to decorate its door with sailboats.

“To sail through life without drugs,” Brett Weinberger and classmate Eric

Berkley said in unison.