By:  Reporter Jonas Kasten 

NHS was announced the winner of Celebrate My Drive on Dec. 9 and will receive a $25,000 grant.

While it is no grand prize, the Celebrate My Drive event has had a profound impact on the NHS community as a whole. While it may not influence all the students, specifically those already driving, it did have a positive impact on new drivers as a whole. Launch Leader Jacob Kadell said with a grin that while it may not impact juniors and seniors, it is going to impact the freshman and sophomores. This great impact on safe driving in the NHS community is because of one person, teacher Ryan Peterson. An alternative education teacher for Neenah, Peterson has recently been working toward a principal license and was asked by associate principal Chad Buboltz if he wanted to bring Celebrate My Drive to NHS to which he readily agreed. Peterson organized everything, from the funding to the ever-famous freezy pops during lunch.  Ultimately, it was not all him. Peterson had help from the entire high school, and that is how NHS won a $25,000 for the school.

Not that a victory mattered to Peterson, he said, “Win, lose or draw this was a success for NHS.” The Celebrate My Drive competition was created to help promote safe driving habits for teens just getting their licenses. Last year in 2014 it was a roaring success, according to the Celebrate My Drive website over 6 million pledges were made from the thousands of high schools that participated. This overwhelming amount of support has led to a new generation of safe drivers in America.