GRIM REAPER TO STRESS BAD ASPECTS OF OVERINDULGENCE

The Grim Reaper will arrive today on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, focusing attention on National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week, which begins Monday.

The Grim Reaper will arrive in a hearse at 12:50 p.m. in front of Academic Hall. The reaper will then roam the campus, visiting residence halls and academic buildings and randomly distributing about 100 T-shirts to students.

The students will be asked to wear the T-shirts next Monday, said Christine Fricke, president of the Public Relations Student Society of America organization on campus, which is sponsoring the program. The Case Studies in PR class is helping with the project.

Each T-shirt bears a picture of the Grim Reaper and states: "If you think alcohol doesn't affect you, you're dead wrong."

Students wearing the T-shirts will receive free pizza and soft drinks from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in the University Center lobby.

Fricke said: "I think the approach we are taking helps because we are not lecturing to the students. It's more of a dramatic approach than lecturing to them."

This is the third year for the Grim Reaper program on campus. Fricke said she believes the program has focused students' attention on alcohol awareness.

"We found that a lot of people said it really makes them think about drinking and driving," said Fricke.

The visit by the Grim Reaper is designed to help promote National Collegiate Alcohol Awareness Week.

Fricke said the reaper's identity has been kept a secret since the inception of the program three years ago. "We don't want people to associate a person with the Grim Reaper. We don't even call it a he or she; we call it an it."

In addition to the visit by the reaper, she said, a billboard will be erected in front of Academic Hall to display some grim statistics about drinking and driving.

Fricke said that nationwide almost 40 percent of alcohol-related traffic fatalities involve victims 25 years of age or younger.

About 50 percent of all traffic fatalities in 1990 involved intoxicated or alcohol-impaired drivers, she said. Over 23,000 Americans died in alcohol-related traffic accidents in 1990, she pointed out.

Students, she said, are being encouraged to act responsibly with alcohol.