No time for drunk drivers
Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 16/01) - Michele Thoms has been crusading against drunk driving for years, a mission she discovered after moving North a decade ago to start a teaching career.
It's a fitting passion for the Newfoundland native who still treasures a Grade 1 report card that says she's too opinionated.
Armed with a strong and uncompromising personality, the 34-year-old math teacher began campaigning against drunk driving after taking a post at St. Patrick High School -- her first and only job since earning two degrees at Memorial University.
"There's nothing wrong with opinions and fighting for what you believe in," she believes.
But who would have thought anybody would be against the cause of preventing driving while drunk?
She has encountered "frightening" resistance.
There are plenty of people in the North who don't like the direction she's been pushing politicians.
Thoms has been fighting for stronger laws that will increase punishment and impose immediate license suspensions on drunk drivers.
"Any time you have a strong opinion there are people who feel threatened."
Despite that, the territorial government may be listening, and will consider changes to the Motor Vehicle Act that should soon be debated in the legislature.
Raising awareness
While keeping that pressure on, Thoms has also been working at changing a culture of invincibility among teens.
The message could finally be getting through.
A recent national conference on drunk driving and youths she helped bring to Yellowknife nicely fed a building momentum. Peer pressure is starting to swing the other way, with teens leading the way at getting classmates to make choices better than driving drunk.
"I can see change within our school. People talk about it openly now," she said. "They see friends that are putting themselves in dangerous situations and they are more likely to talk to adults to let them know what's going on."
Up until age 12, Thoms thought she would be a marine biologist like her grandfather. After that she wanted to be a lawyer like her father.
"It wasn't until I was 21 that I decided I wanted to be a teacher."
To earn cash she began teaching English a second language in Quebec, "then realized I had a tremendous passion for what I was doing."
Helped start SADD
Not long after arriving in Yellowknife to begin her teaching career, she was moved to act against drinking and driving.
"The first three or four years I was teaching at St. Pat's I watched a number of students and former students die as a result of alcohol-related incidents."
In 1994 Thoms and principal John Bowden, personally impacted when his son was brain-injured in a drunk-driving collision, set up a local chapter of SADD - Students Against Drunk Driving.
Thoms' philosophy goes beyond an alcohol focus. To her SADD "isn't just about drinking and driving.
"It's about stopping people from getting to that point in the first place," she said. "I'm a big fan of being proactive, not reactive."
She believes that when you give teens opportunities to do the right thing, that's what they'll do.
Living and working so far away from home has had its challenges.
Most difficult was the death of her father. He was a chainsmoker until nine years ago when he suffered his first heart attack.
Two years ago, he died from a cardiac arrest. Thoms believes the fact he quit smoking bought him some extra time.
His death has encouraged her to get closer to her mother on the east coast.
"When it comes down to it, I'm far away from home. I came here for two years, and this is my tenth."
Still, "I love Yellowknife, I love to be here," she says sincerely, but also with a touch of homesickness.
The St. Pat's `family' has been a very supportive substitute.
For now, Thoms has decided to remain single.
There's no particular reason. She hasn't met the right guy and besides, career has always come first. She takes the idea of marriage very seriously.
"I'm not grown up yet," she insisted.
After being asked to name her hobbies a few minutes later, Thoms loses focus.
That's because she's willing to try absolutely anything. She's a regular traveller, scuba diver and squash player.
