A twist on red ribbon week called PEACE week was celebrated by Lone Star High School recently. During the last week of October, schools are doing what’s called Red Ribbon Week where the students get to dress-up each day to show they’re saying no to drugs. LSHS wanted to start a new tradition, eventually leading to PEACE week.

The PEACE in PEACE week stands for People Encouraging and Caring for Each Other. Student Council got the idea from Duncanville High School who had celebrated a similar theme at their school. Mrs. Fryman, the student council officers, and Mrs. Nix worked to make it bigger, better and more fitting to Lone Star High School.

“We wanted to start a new tradition at Lone Star that honored and deepened the values of Lone Star and philosophies of kindness and compassion promoted through Rachel’s Challenge to build a climate of students at LSHS that pay it forward and leave a legacy of positivity and giving,” student council teacher, Mrs. Fryman said. “In those encouraging efforts, we feel we also deter people from making choices that lead them down a path where they feel drugs and/or alcohol are the answer.”

The dress up days were mostly participated by the students. With Monday being hippie day, crazy socks on Tuesday, Wednesday as red out day, PEACE week and club shirts on Thursday, and costume day on Friday. There were a number of dress up days, picking a favorite must have been a tough choice for planners and students that participated.

“My favorite dress up day is definitely Costume Day. I love the idea of taking someone who inspires you and dressing up as them, or just going all out and having a good time,” student council president Toni Degraff.

In all the excitement of dressing up it was important to remind the students of the true meaning behind PEACE week. Each day had it’s own challenge to increase school spirit and improve the school’s atmosphere. Monday’s challenge was to compliment a stranger, Tuesday’s challenge was to compliment someone on uniqueness, Wednesday was writing a legacy on the star, Thursday was to help out a teacher, and Friday’s challenge was to “take off your mask” and tell something secret about yourself.

“My favorite challenge was writing our legacies on the stars. We got to learn about other people and what they aspired to change,” student council officer Alessandra Garcia said.

Aside from just doing all this stuff, PEACE week had a specific goal. The hope was to get students to change the atmosphere of the school to a more kind, welcoming feel where being kind and showing compassion was almost a habit. To make school a place where people weren’t afraid to show up for fear of being judged or picked on, to actually feel like they matter. A place where students knew to show up and just immediately feel accepted.

Not as many people as hoped participated in the challenges as much as the dress up days. Students didn’t realize the importance of the week and what it could have done with them, but it’s being taken one step at a time. The student body has just recently gotten a hang of their school spirit so hopefully next year, their spirit will be devoted to these challenges.

“ I know it takes time to persuade people to make a perspective change and even longer sometimes to motivate them to take purposeful action on that new perspective. I know that there were kids who took the meaning and challenges of PEACE Week very seriously and served others in some wonderful ways.  I am going to try and focus on those who did embrace the philosophy and spirit of PEACE Week in big and small ways, and we will use those victories in humanity to build on making next year’s PEACE Week even more impactful and of course, way groovier,” Mrs. Fryman said.