Alicia Archuleta does not remember much about what ensued following a knock on her family’s door Feb. 24, 2005.
She remembers a police officer, her father crying, calling her mother to come home. And Archuleta remembers being too shocked to cry.
The police officer had informed them that her 20-year-old sister, Melanie, was dead.
She had died in a car accident, the passenger in a vehicle driven by a drunken driver that went off the road. The driver survived, but Melanie Archuleta’s life ended that evening.
“They had started drinking at noon, and they left their friend’s house at 7:45 because of a fight. We didn’t hear about it until almost midnight,” Alicia Archuleta said. “I miss her laugh more than anything. It was so obnoxious, but I’d give anything to hear it again.”
A Green Mountain High School graduate, Melanie Archuleta had loved animals, wanting to take in every stray dog off the street. Her own dog had lived 18 years. The sisters had played soccer together for years, Alicia Archuleta following in her sister’s footsteps throughout their childhoods.
That, however, stopped that evening in 2005.
Alicia Archuleta spent a week mourning her sister before she returned to her own education at Green Mountain High School. Now an alumna of the school, the younger sister has become a presenter, trying to prevent teenagers from re-enacting the tragedy she and her family endured.
“I’m still angry. To this day I still blame him, but I have to convince myself that my sister was to blame, too,” Alicia Archuleta said. “Every decision she made that day was wrong.”
Archuleta joined Tiffany Hanson, Colorado state office spokeswoman for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, at Green Mountain in January to relate her story.
Hanson said having someone younger (Alicia Archuleta is now 20) speak to the students helps them relate better. Hanson has worked with about 13,800 students from May through this January.
“First and foremost, we’re trying to educate them to be safe drivers,” Hanson said. “We want to protect their future and make sure they have a future. An alarming number of teens don’t think drinking and driving is a problem.”
According to a 2005 survey conducted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, about 220,000 underage Coloradoans had drank an alcoholic beverage within the past year. About half of those surveyed said they had drank within the past month, and third of the self-reporting group said they had participated in binge drinking.
Agent Stacey Collis, a Lakewood Police officer and the school resource officer at Green Mountain, said he has seen underage drinking move from the fringes of the school to become a more common activity.
He has administered educational programs at the school for six years and said he works to be proactive, showing students scientific evidence while also giving them personal examples.
An inebriated man shot Collis in 1986 while Collis was on duty, and the officer reminds the students that intoxicated people do things they would not normally do.
“What we’ve found is some of our scare tactics, some of the kids it works on, most of them it doesn’t,” Collis said. “I know it’s all around, but it’s been a passion of mine to get into the classroom and try to prevent the issues that come with drinking.”
He said he knows he will not make on impact on every student at the school, but when he does, it is well worth it.
Students will approach him in his office at the school and say they have been clean for six weeks or appreciate his programs for helping them quit drinking.
He’s always eager to congratulate them, and he is not there to get anyone in trouble.
“I’ve had students come and talk to me and tell me they have a friend with a drinking problem,” Collis said. “I’m not going to arrest him. I’m going to get them help. That’s powerful.”
For Alicia Archuleta, the most powerful incentive is the memory of her sister. The family visited Melanie Archuleta’s grave last year to grieve for their loved one. Alicia Archuleta said she is not sure what the family will do this year.
“We of course keep her alive,” Alicia Archuleta said. “I’ve named my daughter after her. Sometimes, in her face, I can see a look that looks like Melanie. I love when I catch that resemblance, that my daughter looks like my sister.”
By the numbers
226: Coloradoans killed in alcohol-related crashes in 2006
50: Number of those killed who were aged 16 to 20
16.8 percent: Amount of alcohol consumed in Colorado by underage drinkers in 2005
3,038: Number of Colorado youth aged 12-20 admitted to alcohol treatment programs in 2004