TUPELO – Sheldon Gooch told an auditorium full of Milam Elementary sixth-graders about his mistakes.

Then the former Parchman inmate told them that they can avoid making the same poor choices.

Gooch, a motivational speaker and project coordinator at the Hinds County Senior Transition Program, addressed roughly 540 Milam students Friday as the school kicks off Red Ribbon events.

Schools across the region will participate in Red Ribbon Week over the next week, holding activities to encourage students to stay drug-free.

“I learned that some of the decisions that I make every day will affect my life when I get older,” said Milam student Caitlin Gardner.

Gooch told the students about dropping out of school at age 14, developing an addiction to heroin and getting sentenced to life plus 60 years for armed robbery.

One night in the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman, Gooch broke down, found God and realized that he no longer needed to impress his peers. He reformed his life, and after 12 years in prison, was released by executive clemency from the governor in 1988.

He made it a goal to teach others from the lessons he’s learned, and he now gives speeches to students all over the country. He said it is important to reach students in the sixth-grade age range.

“It is important because they are very impressionable, but they have not been fully tainted,” Gooch said. “There is a lot of exposure but they are still at a place where they are salvageable with the right influences.”

Milam student Ramon Ogden thought the speech was an important reminder to carefully choose his friends.

“If you are hanging around bad people, it will badly affect your life,” Ogden said. “You can make good decisions or bad decisions, but it will affect your life.”

Friday’s event was sponsored by Region III Chemical Dependency Services. Lynn Millender, a prevention specialist at Region III, also said that Gooch’s message was particularly relevant for a room full of sixth-grade students.

“Around that age, 12 or 13, is usually when you see the first exposure a child has to drugs or alcohol,” Millender said. “The longer you can hold them off from having their first experience, your chances go down of having an addiction problem as an adult.”