The students who crammed into the gym at Rimbey Junior/Senior High School weren’t sure what to expect from a presentation by Mitch Dorge, the drummer with the Crash Test Dummies, a Canadian rock band.
It didn’t take them long to find out.
Dorge, who came to the high school recently to give a presentation soon had the students howling with laughter and out on the floor performing with such props as a plastic chicken and a rope.
They all had a great time.
Dorge began his presentation by telling the audience that he was the luckiest, happiest person they could ever hope to meet.
“I am a drummer and I get to do what I love doing and making a living at it.”
He told the students he started out by playing drums on his dad’s head when he was around six-years-old.
“I was a really weird kid,” he recalled. “I had drumsticks in my hands all the time.”
Dorge gave the students the Reader’s Digest version of a life well lived, recounting placing his feet on Russian soil and “ripping New York City apart” as a couple of highlights.
His career has given him a great deal of satisfaction, he said, noting that it’s important to give you all to any job or career.
“If everybody gave 100 per cent all the time most of our problems on this planet would be solved,” he said.
Traveling to schools and speaking to students and making them laugh gives Dorge great pleasure.
“”We don’t get to laugh as much as we should. When you laugh, you forget about the hate and all the stupid stuff we carry with us every day.”
As well as presenting a lively, heartfelt message and engaging the students in some crazy activities that had everyone laughing, Dorge brought home the serious ramifications of using drugs and alcohol.
“I’m not going to stand in front of you and say drugs are bad, drinking is bad, you are all going to die.”
The professional drummer said the students were intelligent enough to make their own choices about drugs and alcohol.
He did, however, encourage the students to check out any type of drug on-line and read the stories about how one’s life can change in an instant because someone did not make a wise choice regarding drugs and alcohol.
Dorge, who also spoke at Rimbey Christian School and Crestomere School is sponsored by Co-operators Insurance.