By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
As the loud, monotone bell signals the transition from fifth to sixth period at Glasgow Middle School, Hadley Stinson walks to her multimedia class. According to the Seth Groce, the multimedia teacher, the class is a “project based course” that “allows them to discuss many different topics.” Among these different topics is also the craft of videography, which include such skills as audio, visuals and editing. It is through the skills she learned in this class that enabled her to win the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative’s “Erase the Stigma” art and video contest.
GRECC, which is headquartered in Bowling Green, recently launched the Erase the Stigma contest that aims to raise awareness for what mental health is and how people can take care of themselves. Eleven school districts participated in the contest including Caverna, Christian, Daviess, Elizabethtown, Glasgow, Logan, Muhlenberg, Ohio, Owensboro and Russellville.
“The ‘Erase the Stigma’ contest was focused on bringing attention to mental health awareness and helping fight mental health stigma,” Kellie Thompson, Project Prevent Safe Place director, said. “Through this contest, our hope was to highlight mental health as an essential part of overall health and provide a creative space in which students could share their voice.”
Stinson said the news was “dropped” on her while doing an interview at Glasgow Middle School. She recalled having to “keep it together” despite the internal excitement she felt.
“I was very excited,” she said. “I really didn’t expect it at all.”
For winning both the district and the regional contest, Stinson will receive some monetary prizes in the form of gift cards and a certificate.
“Hadley won a $20 gift card for being the overall winner in the Glasgow Independent School District and a $50 gift card for being the overall video winner out of the 11 grant districts,” Thompson said. “Her video is being highlighted on social media platforms in her district and throughout the GRREC region.”
The video, which took her roughly four days to finish, features numerous locations throughout the middle school and some practice footage as well. The focus of the 28-second video — according to Groce the videos had to be under 30 seconds — is best summarized in the video’s vibrant red lettering: “We can take care of our mental health through sports…or whatever makes you happy.”
Stinson said she got the idea after talking to a few of her classmates about the competition.
“I [asked] a bunch of kids in my class what helped them and their mental health and they all, or most of them, said sports and so I tried to incorporate that and… stuff lots of people find that helps them,” she said.
Groce said while he helps the students in his class by providing direction and occasionally helping with video editing, he is extremely happy that Stinson was able to use multimedia skills to get attention not only inside GMS but in the community as well.
“I wouldn’t want to put much of it on me,” Groce said. “I gave the kids a direction and they took it and ran with it…All I’m doing is giving them the chance to do these kind of things.”
“It makes me really proud that my students are able to do this and already show the talent that they have, not just inside, but outside the school building,” he added.
In the end, Stinson said, she hopes people who watch her video will get a sense that mental health has a lot of different forms from relaxing by reading a book and drinking tea, drawing or playing sports and to be specific and direct in the way you go about taking mental care of oneself.
“There are so many things people can do to help their mental health and you just need to find that one thing that is specific to you and can help your mental health,” she said.
According to GRECC, Haylea Lehecka, a student at the Owensboro Innovation Academy, won overall in the art portion of the competition.
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