Truman Graduates 373 Seniors Under Sunny Skies

By: Erich Martin, LevittonwNow.com

The Bristol Township School District grad­u­at­ed its high school seniors under sun­ny skies on Thursday evening (6/7/18) at Harry S. Truman High School.

“Graduation is just a step­ping stone on our path through life,” said class pres­i­dent Lauren Vogt.

Lots of peo­ple lose sight of what it means to be suc­cess­ful, Vogt told her peers. She assured her class­mates that it isn’t mon­ey or mate­r­i­al possessions.

“To be suc­cess­ful in life is to wake up every morn­ing and be hap­py with what you have done,” Vogt said.

“We are here today to cel­e­brate our achieve­ments and com­mem­o­rate one of the most mem­o­rable times of our lives,” class vale­dic­to­ri­an Boris Guzman said.

“You were born to make an impact,” Truman prin­ci­pal Lyndell Davis began, urg­ing the grad­u­at­ing class to find their pur­pose and make the most of it.

Dr. Melanie Gerhens, the super­in­ten­dent of the dis­trict, told the class that every stu­dent has the abil­i­ty to cre­ate a pos­i­tive impact in society.

Fast Facts:

• Number of grad­u­ates: 373
• Percentage of college-bound grad­u­ates: 75 percent
• Percentage of work-bound grad­u­ates: 13 percent
• Percentage of grad­u­ates serv­ing in the military:12 percent
• Amount of schol­ar­ships earned by the class: More than $4 million

Staging Of Violent Crash Serves As Important Lesson For High Schoolers

By: Tom Sofield, LevittownNow.com

Shattered glass, man­gled met­al, and clothes soaked with fake blood sat in the park­ing lot of Harry S. Truman High School in Bristol Township Thursday as stu­dents gath­ered around to see the con­se­quences of poor deci­sion making.

In coor­di­na­tion with emer­gency respon­ders and local hos­pi­tals, the high school held its annu­al mock crash in the front park­ing lot in advance of prom week­end. The mock crash was set up to warn stu­dents of the risks of intox­i­cat­ed and dis­tract­ed driving.

Bristol Township police cars raced up to the mock crash scene that involved three vehi­cles. They put the stu­dent who act­ed as the intox­i­cat­ed dri­ver who caused the crash into a patrol car while medics and fire­fight­ers began work to treat the injured students.

In addi­tion to stu­dents who suf­fered a num­ber of real-looking “injuries,” sev­er­al stu­dents “died” from injuries sus­tained dur­ing the mock crash.

Ambulances took the stu­dents to area hos­pi­tals, includ­ing the trau­ma unit at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown. At the ambu­lance bay, trau­ma teams and doc­tors assessed the stu­dent actors as if they were real patients. They treat­ed those who sur­vived and doc­tors told par­ents who par­tic­i­pat­ed the extent of their children’s injuries.

The stu­dent who act­ed as the intox­i­cat­ed dri­ver was hauled before a dis­trict judge for a mock arraign­ment and then trans­port­ed to the Bucks County Correctional Facility to get a taste of what would hap­pen to him.

To make the annu­al mock crash feel more real, the stu­dents who took part in the event hand­ed over their cell phone and stayed in an area hotel overnight.

With the mock crash wreck­age sur­round­ing him, senior Habeeb Baba advised his peers of the risks of intox­i­cat­ed dri­ving and laid out what they had to lose.

On Friday, stu­dents of the par­ents who were killed in the mock crash planned to read their obit­u­ar­ies before the senior class.

“I know that you’re going through school think­ing that some­times peo­ple don’t care about you,” Truman teacher Jill Saul told stu­dents. “But I want to show you and point out to you how many peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty are here for you.”

At St. Mary Medical Center, the mock DUI crash served as a train­ing drill for their Level Two trau­ma team, which oper­ates around the clock, said Kim Everett, the hospital’s trau­ma pre­ven­tion coordinator.

“This is real­is­tic for the kids and we go through what we would for real trau­ma patients,” she said.

“Our goal is to pre­vent trauma.”