Play Hard, Live Clean Campaign Celebrates Student Successes

By Kendra McLaughlin, MPH, Director of Health Education, Outreach, & Dental

During the 2023-2024 school year, each public school in Garrett County participated in the Garrett County Health Department’s Play Hard, Live Clean (PHLC) campaign. PHLC is a healthy lifestyle campaign designed to encourage youth to make good choices by recognizing and rewarding them for specific positive lifestyle accomplishments from kindergarten through graduation.

“As we wrapped up our seventh PHLC year in partnership with the Garrett County Public School System, we recognized a number of Garrett County students for exemplary participation,” said Amy Ritchie, campaign spokesperson from the health department. “In addition to our two senior scholarship winners, we also recognized 10 fifth graders, 17 fourth graders, and 32 third graders for completing PHLC challenges in each consecutive year of their schooling. This is a remarkable accomplishment!”

The 10 fifth graders who received a platinum medal for their six consecutive years of PHLC participation were as follows:

• Accident Elementary – Colt Chaney
• Crellin Elementary – Luke Bowser, Hudson German, Silver Meyers, Lucas Sweitzer, and Molli Teets
• Friendsville Elementary – Abigail Article, Grant Guard
• Grantsville Elementary – Ainsley Rawe
• Route 40 – Addison Green

The 17 fourth graders who received a gold medal for their five consecutive years of PHLC participation were as follows:

• Broad Ford Elementary – Liliana Copeland, Kalel Dillsworth, Connor Knepp, Natalee Lipscomb-Grimes, and Nicholas Shafer
• Crellin Elementary – Dani Hughes and Ryan Roth
• Friendsville Elementary – Kendall Beachy, Joel McCormick, and Kanan Thorn
• Route 40 Elementary – Emmalyn Blocher, Austin Broadwater, Landon Crawford, Skylin Miller, and Adley Spataro
• Youth Glades – Noah Hoffman and Willow Hooker

The 32 third graders who received a silver medal for their four consecutive years of PHLC participation were as follows:

• Accident Elementary – Evelyn Fratz, Lylia Humberson, James King, Lukas Margroff, Abigal McQuillan, Rylan Perez, and Kinsley Thomas
• Broad Ford Elementary – Kyleigh Dale, Hunter Harris, and AlecXander Michaels
• Crellin Elementary – Briley Edwards, Camden Lewis, Levi Lipscomb, Kalan Meyers, Taylor Murphy, Jaxon Schmidt, Sadie Scott, Kyla Tressler, and Cillian Walton
• Friendsville Elementary – Zoe Beck, Aryan Burley, Novalee Schmidt, and Cecilia Yoder
• Grantsville Elementary – Nathaniel Zanoni
• Route 40 Elementary – Kace Gillum, Keagan Kamp, Cambria O’Donnell, and Gannon O’Donnell
• Youth Glades Elementary – Brena Ashby, Cash Hardesty, Phoenix Hooker, and Lily Roberts.

The types of challenges that students had to achieve revolved around healthy eating or healthy drinking, physical activity, and mindfulness, and the students listed previously completed these challenges each year of their elementary school career. 

“The more times young people practice making healthy choices, the more likely it is for those choices to become a regular habit,” explained Mrs. Ritchie. “These students, especially the fifth graders who made these good choices for six years in a row, are on a really good path.”

The culmination of the PHLC campaign for high school seniors is the awarding of a scholarship to one Northern High student and one Southern High student. The $500 scholarships can be used for work expenses, health expenses, or further education of any kind. 

To be considered for this scholarship, students must complete a brief application and agree to be subjected to a social media scan to verify that they live a lifestyle free of drugs and alcohol. The more a student has participated in the campaign through the years, the greater their chances of winning the scholarship. This year’s scholarship recipients were Jared Graham from Northern High and Ethan Koach from Southern High. Each was asked to share thoughts about what “live clean” means to them.

Northern High School recipient, Jared Graham, said: “I choose to stay clean in all areas of my life, and I take pride in knowing that all of my successes come from the work that I personally put into them.”

Southern High School winner, Ethan Koach, said: “Living clean for me has been easy since I surround myself with people who share the sentiment of staying drug-free. “ 

For more information about the Play Hard, Live Clean campaign, visit the website at PlayHardLiveClean.com or contact the health department at 301-334-7730 or 301-895-3111.

Cutline: Play Hard, Live Clean is a healthy lifestyle campaign designed to encourage youth to make good choices by recognizing and rewarding them for specific positive lifestyle accomplishments throughout their school years. The culmination of this Garrett County Health campaign for high school seniors is the awarding of a scholarship to one Northern High student and one Southern High student. The winners for 2023-2024 are shown above with representatives from the Garrett County Health Department during their respective awards ceremonies. Pictured from left to right are Jared Graham, presenter Linda Costello from the Garrett County Health Department, and Ethan Koach.