STUDENTS LEARN OF MAN'S PROBLEMS FROM DRINKING

JACKSON -- Students at R.O. Hawkins Junior High School packed the school's gymnasium Monday morning to listen to alumnus Carl Pulliam.

But Pulliam, 32, didn't bring a message of achievement. His message was a warning wrapped in regret.

Stay off alcohol and drugs, Pulliam told the students, all seventh graders. The assembly was held at the school as part of national Drug Awareness Week.

Pulliam of Jackson well knows the possible consequences of not heeding his warning. More than two years ago a car driven by Pulliam slammed head-on into another vehicle just south of the city. After the accident, Pulliam was found to have a blood-alcohol level of .167 percent, well above the .10 percent level required in Missouri for a presumption of intoxication.

The driver of the other vehicle, then-18-year-old Anthony Birk of Jackson, suffered numerous critical injuries, including a severe head injury, a severely torn and punctured lung, and a bruised and enlarged heart. A circuit judge sentenced Pulliam to seven years in prison for second-degree assault. But after serving three months, he was placed on five years probation.

Pulliam volunteered to speak to students as part of his conditions of probation.

That he did Monday, and the students listened intently.

Pulliam told the students their lives had reached a crucial point, one where they will decide, among other things, whether they're going to drink alcohol.

As a result of his actions, Pulliam said, he spent three months in a prison patrolled by guards with semi-automatic and automatic rifles who just waited for someone to jump the fence and try to escape.

"It's something you need to think about before you go out and take that first drink, smoke that first joint, do that first line of coke," he said, adding that drugs will "ruin you."

"It's not worth the price. Believe me, there's not a week that goes by where I don't think about what I did."

Pulliam said he began drinking in junior high school. He drank at least six cans of beer a day, he said. In eighth grade, he started smoking marijuana.

The assembly Monday also included a slide show on alcohol and drugs presented by Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle. The slides pictured cars demolished in drunk-driving accidents; people who were arrested, injured or killed in cases involving drugs and alcohol; and drugs such as crack cocaine and marijuana, along with drug paraphernalia.

One slide showed a teenager who passed out in a roadway after getting drunk at a party, Swingle said. After he passed out, the prosecutor said, another teenager left the party in his vehicle and ran over the first boy, dragging him and killing him. The boy who ran over the other was prosecuted for careless and imprudent driving and spent a year in jail, he said.

"So that's two families that got crushed and their hopes dashed because of two bad choices," he said.

Using shock tactics, Swingle told the story of an operation in the South American country of Colombia where women were paid for having babies. Afterwards, he said, the babies were killed and gutted, and used to hide cocaine under the guise of being live babies that were being smuggled into Los Angeles.

"You can run into some very, very bad guys when you get involved in drugs," he warned the students.

The students had the opportunity to ask Pulliam questions after his talk. One male student asked Pulliam if he ever talks to Birk.

"I've made several attempts to talk to him and his parents," he said. "They won't talk to me."

He added, "I can't blame them one bit for that. I was at fault; I'm the one who put him in the hospital."

Swingle said after the assembly that Birk's mother had been in the audience.

Billy Minner, 12, was one of several students who talked with Pulliam following the assembly. Minner said he thought Pulliam's talk was interesting and that Pulliam has coped well since the accident.

"As long as he stays off drinking beer and doing drugs, he'll be okay," he said.

Classmate Keisha Gerhardt, also 12, said afterwards that people should never use drugs. What shocked her most about the assembly, she said, was what could happen to people in traffic accidents.

Drug Awareness Week at the school will also feature an essay and poster contest and an assembly for eighth graders on Wednesday, said Karen McDowell of The Parent Network. A dance for 11- to 16-year-olds will be held Saturday. The Parent Network educates children about drug abuse, she said.