All eyes were on Kasey Benson as he shared laughs as well as dark and personal stories involving drug use with the student body.
Every student was expected to go to this talk and sophomore Sofia Lozano thought it was good that it was the administration scheduled the event.
“I think it was a good thing, the whole school needs to know what the consequences are if they drink and smoke,” Lozano said.
Freshman Cole Koenning thought differently on the topic.
“It seemed like an administration thing to do.  I’m sure if they didn’t make every one go nobody would have gone.  It didn’t necessarily convince everyone that drugs were bad,” Koenning said. “However they certainly achieved their goal with some students. I noticed quite a few anti-drug Facebook and Instagram posts that day.”
Benson gave his talk hoping that students would take away from it a lesson that they have one choice away from a different life.
“Bottom line is that they have one choice away from a different life. I hope that they will hear my stories and that when a situation shows up in their life, whether it is getting in a car with a drunk, driving drunk themselves or even trying drugs or alcohol for the first or tenth time that they will make a better choice,” Benson said.  “Statistics show it for itself, I don’t have to say a lot of statistics.  That’s why I don’t use statistics in my talks, because statistics are what they are, you can look them up all day long.  Main thing is that I hope they get the point that they have one choice away from a different life, or no life.”
Senior Luke Rincon agreed that it was a very serious topic.
“I took away from the talk that drugs and alcohol are a serious threat to your well-being and they should be avoided if possible,” Rincon said. “You should take action when a friend is abusing these items and help them to control themselves because it can lead to very serious consequences.”
Many students including Benson said that his talk was a mixture of high and lows but that it makes an impact.
“It is an emotional roller coaster, I like to have fun and laugh, I want to get you to where you are like “hey were are having fun together.”  I cant go in there and just do a solid hour worth of emotion, that would be horrible I would hate to sit through something like that, I would hate to sit there for an hour and hear about all these deaths and horribleness,” Benson said.
Junior Angela Traylor felt a various sense of emotions through out the talk and liked Bensons words.
“I really liked Mr. Benson, I think he is someone who can truly leave a mark on people. He definitely took us on an emotional roller coaster, from personal, heartbreaking, tear-jerking stories to absolutely hilarious stories that made up for the sadness,” Traylor Said. “He was unique because he didn’t give us the usual “don’t do drugs because they are bad” speech.”
After hearing this some students started looking towards their future, especially freshman David Garza.
“It made me think of better decisions about my life and future, I don’t smoke or drink, but it made me realize that asking people how they have been can sometimes make a difference both physically and emotionally,” Garza said. “ It made me want to go out and make people happy, make the people having bad days laugh or smile.”
Benson gives talks all around the country because that what he does, it just so happens that his wife works at on campus and that he was contacted.
“My wife works here, and this is what I do, like Mr. Kane said it, they scoured the country looking for the best school presenter in the country, and his wife works here and I thought it was kind of cool,” Benson said. “It’s also a little different because I go to school after school and then I leave that school, but what so great about this is that I’m here. Usually I go in do my presentation and then leave hoping that they will make better choices, but since I’m here, I’m here. I hope that one of my stories will ultimately spark inside people because I don’t want to bury any more teenagers.