Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Saturday, July 22, 2006

LAWMEN TEAM UP FOR MADD CAMPAIGN
The small but spunky local chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving directed a photo shoot Friday to capture an image that will serve as a "visual reminder" of the immediate consequences of drunken driving.

The photo--featuring a line of stone-faced police officers--will be the centerpiece of the local MADD chapter's first public relations campaign.

"The effort is, of course, to get people to make more responsible decisions," said Brenda Sadler, MADD president. "We're doing whatever we can to remind people to be responsible when you drink."

The media campaign will include a poster, a slogan dreamed up by members of the Boys and Girls Club of the Tanana Valley and maybe T-shirts and television commercials, said Sadler.
For the photo shoot, law enforcement officers from six area agencies lined up their SUVs, squad cars, a motorcycle, a four-wheeler and a dog on Wilbur Street, which was closed Friday afternoon for the photo shoot. A camera flashed along with the emergency lights, and officers posed stiffly, with stern looks on their faces.

Chris Smith of Frozen Image Photography will design the poster, 1,000 of which are to be printed for distribution at schools, law enforcement agencies and--dare Sadler think it--bars.
"That might be touchy," she said.

MADD member Alan Mitchell hatched the idea for the poster last year after seeing anti-drunken driving posters in California and Pennsylvania.

The poster for the Keystone State features the Pennsylvania Highway Patrol "all decked out," Mitchell said, with the agencies' full fleet of vehicles in view, including a helicopter. "At the top it said, 'Drinking and driving is the offense.' At the bottom was, 'This is the defense,'" said Mitchell, who lost a cousin in an accident with a drunken driver, and who was the president of Students Against Driving Drunk years ago at his high school in San Diego.

"I thought it really made a statement," Mitchell said. "If you saw that walking into a bar, you would definitely go, 'Hmmmm.' It would make you think."

It took little convincing to lure the law enforcement officers to the afternoon photo shoot near the Fairbanks Correctional Center and the Fairbanks Youth Soccer Association fields.
"When (Sadler) first pitched the idea, we said, 'When? Where?'" said Lt. Lonnie Piscoya of Alaska State Troopers.

Also present were military police from Fort Wainwright, Fairbanks International Airport police, North Pole police, University of Alaska Fairbanks police and the Fairbanks Police Department.
Military police from Eielson Air Force Base were invited but did not attend.

Fairbanks Police Chief Dan Hoffman observed the photo shoot and provided the department's tactical team van so Smith could shoot pictures from its tall roof. Hoffman also likes the poster idea. "It's a visual reminder that there are numerous law enforcement agencies securing this jurisdiction," he said.

Reporter Amanda Bohman can be reached at abohman@ newsminer.com or 459-7544.