Recently Skip Gates and United States Attorney General Tristram Coffin came to the South Royalton School to further educate students about the consequences of binge drinking and drug use.

The students at South Royalton have recently had a lot of profes­sionals come in and preach the same message, but this one stood out the most, since it was delivered by a first-hand victim, Gates, who lost his son William due to a drug overdose.

Gates said he knew that his son was experimenting with marijuana and alcohol, but didn’t know about his bigger problem. He asked his son repeatedly if he was into any hard drugs, but William repeatedly denied it.

When William died of the over­dose,

Gates did not know what to do with himself. To help with his recovery process, he decided that he wanted to tell kids his story and educate them about the dangers of these “thrilling” drugs.

Once Gates was finished telling his story, he and Coffin opened up the floor for questions. Every type of student asked a question. It was not just the kids that you might think would experiment, it was also the kids whom you would never predict to partake in such activities. The questioning session lasted for nearly two hours and had to be cut off because it was running so long. By the end, the students felt more educated and also felt that they had gotten to express their opinions.

When they were asked, most stu­dents said they believed this was the most effective message yet.