On May 10, 2023, Your Life Speaks representative Nathan Harmon spoke to Fort Osage High School students about recovering from horrible life choices. Mr. Harmon hopes to improve the overall community. 

“I believe that no matter where we are in life, we can confront ourselves,” Mr. Harmon said. “We can create a healthy journey, but gotta take ownership, and the power of human connection, and community.”

Your Life Speaks is an organization dedicated to promoting the ideas of self-resilience. Junior Makayla Schulz found the assembly touching.

“I really enjoyed the assembly,” Schulz said. “It was nice to see a different outlook on life and it connected in many ways.”

The organization has made over 1,400 speeches during its existence. Junior Destiny Thompson felt the speech was inappropriate given previous events that have happened at the school.

“I didn’t think the speaker was appropriate, considering the circumstances of past deaths we’ve had,” Thompson said. “We’ve lost students to drunk drivers, and they brought someone who was involved in a fatal drunk driving accident and it just felt weird.” 

Speeches were offered to the students in shifts, with juniors and sophomores going first, followed by seniors and freshmen. A third speech was held after school for anyone else who wanted to attend.