fight Underage Drinking, and Drinking & Driving
Following days were filled with every emotion you can imagine. Person after person saying the same words, as heart felt as they were, hollow in their content, because they were right, there was NO WAY they could know how I felt...but those words, and the stories they shared with me of Gator were enough to drive me to want to do something...and while standing outside talking to one of Gator's friends mothers, it came to me that he wasn't going to die, and be forgotten, or a memory, or a picture.
A few weeks after the funeral, I recieved a phone call, informing me that Gator had a very high blood alcohol content at the time of his death, and the final documented cause, blunt force trauma to the head, breaking the neck and severing the spinal cord...the only solice, he never knew what happened to him, and never laid in pain or fear. I became instanlty infuriated and was on a mission to make something good of the tragedy that cost the world a beautiful soul, a best friend to everyone, a brother to six, and a son to his mother and myself.
The decision came to me, sitting and staring at his picture on his Facebook page. Gator was just two weeks away from starting at Rhodes State College in their Nursing program, because he knew he could make a life for himself and eventually hopefully his family by doing something he loved to do, and that was helping others. Thus the birth of the Gator Spradlin Memorial Nursing Scholarship, and gatorspradlin.org.
Because of his loss, we will never know the work he would do, but I know he would have loved it. I know too that with this scholarship, he's going to continue to help people everyday, just through someone elses hands.
After the eagerness wore off to help the students, then came our 'other' mission. As important as the scholarship program is to me to keep the name Gator Spradlin alive, the mission to avoid the next parent getting the phone call I did, is forefront. We have partnered with several organizations to fight the underage consumption of alcohol, and drunk driving. We are in close partnership especially with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, to put a dent in underage drinking, house party hosting, and getting drunk drivers off our roads. We are also working directly with both state and local government agencies in an effort to promote legislation to increase awareness for the public, and stiffer penalties for the offender. Currently underway is an effort on my part to work closely with area bar owners in the push of the NONE UNDER 21 program, and I have recieved a warm welcome of support from them.
