Stop Texting and Driving Tennessee Scholarship Winner
At Raybin & Weissman, we are extremely proud of our 2017 Stop Texting and Driving Scholarship winners. We had a number of amazing video entries, as students across the country created very effective PSAs which expressed the dangers of texting and driving.
We cannot believe how powerful, creative and touching all of the videos that we’ve received are. Choosing winners is not an easy process, and we thank all of our entrants that took the time to create a video taking a stand against distracted driving.
Qualifying videos were between 30 to 60 seconds in length, made by high school juniors/seniors or college students, and uploaded to YouTube. We awarded a local, regional and a national winner with $1,000 each.
Our regional scholarship winner, awarded to the best video submission from Tennessee, is Chandler Warrick. Chandler is a student at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.
I am happy to have the pleasure of presenting Chandler his scholarship at this year’s Stop Texting and Driving Scholarship Ceremony. Congratulations, Chandler, and thank you for helping us raise awareness of the dangers of texting and driving!
Take a minute to watch his video below.
The Idea For His Scholarship Video
We asked Chandler about the thought process for creating his video.
“I liked the idea of having the text bubbles,” Chandler says. “I lean more towards humor, but I really wanted to take this seriously.”
You get a glance into Chandler’s humor as the video begins with an autocorrect joke about ‘macho dip.’ The video quickly takes a turn, though, as the texts stop being delivered.
Chandler recalls showing the video to a friend. Once the Not Delivered messages start showing up, the friend responded, “Oh my gosh. This is serious.”
That’s kind of the note I wanted to end on,” says Chandler. “I was really happy with how it came out.“
Chandler’s video does a great job of highlighting the dangers of texting and driving in a very creative way. It sends a strong message and encourages viewers to put down their phone while driving.
Distracted Driving In Tennessee
It’s a much-needed PSA because Tennessee is one of the worst states in the nation for Texting and Driving. In 2016, a record high 24,743 crashes in Tennessee involved a distracted driver. That is more than double the amount of distracted driving incidents that occurred 10 years ago.
My hope is that through the scholarship contest and the great videos like Chandler’s, we can increase awareness and start reducing the number of instances of texting and driving.
