There’s nothing like a little competition to get the blood moving.
For more than a century, Bear River and Box Elder high schools have been cultivating an intense, cross-valley rivalry on the playing fields. And for the past several years, they have been using that bad blood to do good, organizing an annual blood drive to see which school can give the most to a cause for which the urgency is ever growing.
Last Tuesday, on Halloween, the schools participated in their annual “Blood Battle,” an event organized by the Red Cross. The gyms at both schools were temporarily transformed into donation sites, where students, their family members and school faculty turned out to give blood that will be sent near and far to help save lives.
Teresa Cutler, health sciences teacher at BRHS and coordinator for the school’s HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America) program, said Red Cross approached the school about five years ago to start an effort similar to an ongoing friendly competition between Utah State and Weber State universities. The relief organization has helped organize similar events at other high schools around Utah, including those in Cache Valley.
“I said ‘sure, anytime we can make it a competition, that’s just better for us,’” Cutler said. “We were doing the drive anyway. The idea of making it competitive gets more people involved.”
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