With the school year winding down, many of our community’s teenagers will be attending prom.

Prom is a time to remember that nervousness at seeing your date, hanging out with friends and dancing the night away. For some, it’s a night to remember for different reasons. Sometimes our children don’t make it home safely after the big night.

Warren Central has been hosting a program since at least 1984 and the message has remained the same for over 30 years, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said.

“Decisions you make today, decisions you make Saturday night can affect you immediately or for the rest of your life. Right here from this auditorium there were people who left and never came back,” Pace told the group of students gathered Wednesday in the high school auditorium.

To ensure our children arrive unhurt seatbelt safety advocate Cassandra Reed was part of Warren Central’s annual safe prom presentation.

“You need to drive not only for yourselves, but take into consideration the people you leave at home when you’re leaving,” Reed said. “It’s real to walk down the steps of a morgue. It’s real. I’m a witness. I lived it,” Reed said.

Reed’s daughter Acasia Rochelle Lee was killed in a crash on her way to school on Oct. 18, 2012. The Warren Central student was not wearing a seat belt.

After the program, hundreds of Warren Central High School students made a colorful pledge to make a seatbelt part of their pre- and post-prom outfits.

Students put their fingerprints in paint on a banner promoting seatbelt safety and safe driving before and after Saturday’s prom. The pledge, thought up by Reed, was a new part of Warren Central’s annual safe prom presentation.

Let’s hope it continues to be a part of the presentation. Our children need to know the importance of seatbelt use.