Deanna Boucher - SADD National Student Leadership Council

SADD
Students Against Destructive Decisions

I am interviewing Jan Withers of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and I thought it would be cool to interview somebody from a different organization that works on some of the same issues.  Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) is a pretty cool organization. This interview is with Deanna Boucher, the Chair of the SADD Student Leadership Council.


PMAKid: What is SADD? What does SADD do? Can you tell me about the history of it and how it has changed over the years?

Ms Deanna: SADD stands for Students Against Destructive Decisions. We are based mostly in high schools and middle schools across the country, and we work to prevent, educate, and advocate against the destructive decisions teens face. We were founded in 1981 as Students Against Driving Drunk in Wayland, Massachusetts after two teen tragedies. In 1997, the students in SADD decided that teens face many more issues than just driving drunk, so SADD expanded its mission. Over the past 30 years, we have grown to be the nation’s leading peer-to-peer advocacy organization. We have found that when students talk to students, results happen.

Check out my interview on Wasted Days

I usually do the interviews, but this time I got interviewed!  This is with Wasted Days Collective.  They interview straight edge and PMA musicians and stuff.  They also talk about other stuff (like Sound & Fury fest).

Thanks for the interview! It was cool and fun!

RIP Mr. Ferreter: A Great Teacher

Mr. Ferreter - my kindergarten teacher

Next week is Teacher Appreciation Week here in the United States.  During this week, we are supposed to think about all the cool teachers we have had and thank them for helping us to learn.  Adults should remember the teachers that they had when they were kids and thank the teachers who help their kids to learn.

Kids like me spend a lot of time each day at school, and our teachers have a big impact on kids like me.  They help us learn what we need to understand for when we grow up and they have a hug for us when we are sad about something.  They are not our parents, but they they are sort of like on a team with our parents.

Paul Ferreter was my kindergarten teacher - my first real teacher.  The day my mom and dad dropped me off for kindergarten I was scared and nervous. Here was this stranger at the front of the room that I had never met before and I was supposed to listen to everything he said and he was going to help me learn new things.  There were all sorts of new kids I had never met before.

Mr. Ferreter taught me to be a Letter Expert. (I still have my old Letter Expert crown that I got when I became a Letter Expert.)  He helped me to learn to read.  He helped me to learn math. He was always happy and had a great smile, and whenever we needed help he was there.  That was the most fun year that I have ever had at school.  Every school year - all the way up to 6th Grade - Mr. Ferreter would always say "Hi!" when I passed him in the hall.  All the kids loved him, and he was an awesome person in every way.

Mr. Ferreter died this past Monday.  He had learned a few months ago that he had Stage 4 inoperable stomach cancer.  When he learned about this, he resigned after teaching for many, many years so he could spend time with his family.  All of us at the school were scared and nervous and we hoped and prayed that he would get better.  Unfortunately, the cancer ended up winning.  This has been really tough for his family, his students and all the people who he worked with because we loved him so much.

So I want everybody that comes to my website and reads this to think about the great teachers that you have now, that you had in the past, that your kids may have or whatever and think about what they do for the kids. Teachers like Mr. Ferreter are our friends, our mentors and so much more.  Please thank a teacher for everything they do.

Bye Mr. Ferreter.  We will all miss you forever...

Cool drawing of me!

My friend Stephanie from Out of Sight is a really awesome artist.  Check out what she drew of me!  This is definitely going to be used on  the site!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tim McMahon of Mouthpiece and Double Cross Webzine

Tim McMahon and Mouthpiece
playing at This is Hardcore 2011

Tim McMahon is the lead singer for a few different bands, including New Jersey's Mouthpiece.  They are a really cool band!  He also helps run Double Cross website.  (They are upgrading their website and moving to a new address which you can check out: DoubleCrossXX.com.).  Thank you for doing this awesome interview, Mr. McMahon.

PMAKid: You have been in a few bands like Mouthpiece, Hands Tied and Triple Threat. It has been about 20 years since you were playing in Mouthpiece. What are you doing musically today?

Mr. McMahon: Last year the Youth Of Today guys asked if Mouthpiece would be interested in doing a handful of dates with them on the east and west coast. Considering Youth Of Today are easily one of our biggest influences and one of the most important bands in hardcore, we pulled Mouthpiece out of retirement and made it happen. For the first time since we broke up in 1996, we were able to get our guitarist, Matt Wieder, out of Indiana and back on the road with us, as well as other original members, Chris Schuster on guitar, Jason Jammer on drums and long time Mouthpiece roadie, friend and reunion show bassist, Ed McKirdy. In reality, this 2011-2012 line up ended up being the strongest and hardest hitting line up that we've ever had. We ended up doing two shows in Pomona California, one show in Oakland California, one show in Washington DC, one show in Philadelphia, one show in New York City and one show in Brooklyn, all with Youth Of Today and all were a lot of fun.

Lou Koller from NYHC band Sick Of It All

Lou Koller of Sick Of It All

Lou Koller is the lead singer for the band Sick Of It All.  They have been playing hardcore music for a long time.  I did not really know them very well until I saw the H2O video for "What Happened?" where Lou Koller and Matt Skiba were doing guest vocals.  Thanks to Jordan Cooper from Revelation Records and Nathan Gluck from Good Fight Entertainment for helping me to get this interview!!


PMAKid: You have been singing for Sick of it All since the mid-1980s (my dad even saw you guys play at CBGBs a long time ago). A lot of the early hardcore bands played for a few years and then broke up (except for reunion shows and stuff). How is it that Sick of it All has been going strong for so many years?

Mr. Koller: We simply found something we loved and wanted to do for a living. We are lucky that we found this and stuck with it. Even when times were bad and there was little to no money coming in, we stuck with it. I can't tell you how many years we would work all week just to afford to go on tour. Then get home from the weekend tour at like 3 or 4 am monday to be up for work by 6 am. We just had so much fun and loved that we got to travel and meet people from all walks of life that we just kept going.

Connie Conway, Republican Leader in California State Assembly

Assemblywoman Connie Conway
Republican Leader

Assemblywoman Connie Conway is the Republican Leader in the California State Assembly. She works with the Speaker and the Governor and the two leaders in the State Senate to get laws passed in California.  I really appreciate Assemblywoman Conway taking the time to do this interview!



Assembly Republican Leader Connie Conway: First and foremost, Julian, I'd like to thank you for all of your hard work. You are a terrific role model to other young people and I'm honored that you asked me to participate in this interview.

PMAKid: What are your three favorite books and why are they your favorites?

Assemblywoman Conway: Serving as Assembly Republican Leader keeps me extremely busy so I don’t have the time I’d like to have for pleasure reading. Since this job is so fast-paced, I spend a lot of time reading the news. I’m a little bit of a news junkie and I’m always reading newspapers, magazines and blogs and watching local and national news shows to keep up on the latest events.

PMAKid: What are your three favorite songs and why are they your favorites?