Fairbury Booster Club hosts ‘Booster Bash’ to focus on mental health at the start of school year

FAIRBURY, Neb. -- The Fairbury Booster Club hosted a "Booster Bash" with students and parents invited to celebrate the new school year.

Food was provided along with a presentation from speaker Larry Widman, who talked about the importance of mental health in high school students. 

“We are definitely going to have an emphasis on mental health and its role in how well you perform in life,” Widman said. “And just a little bit about how you go about getting help for your mental health. My goal is that I want athletes in particular to attack their mental health injury just like they would a physical injury.”

Widman said high school students who battle with mental health have trouble bringing it up with others.

“I’ll show them some college data today but the high school data is exactly the same,” Widman said. “15 to 20 percent in 2022 reported some clinical depression, 30 percent reported they felt so anxious that they were overwhelmed and only about 10 percent asked for help. And that’s not good enough."

According to Widman, parents have a large part in influencing their children to be confident and motivated.

“Parents can play such a big role in either helping or hurting their child's confidence and most of the time, they are not aware of when they are actually hurting their kid’s confidence,” Widman said. “So there is a lot that parents can do to help improve the mindset of their child and help their performance in school and, obviously, in the lens of athletics.”

Whether a person struggles with mental health or not, Widman said it is prevalent in everybody's life. 

“One thing I know is that everyone is impacted by it and I think that is one of the messages I really want to make sure they understand,” said Widman. "That you can act tough and you can try to bury it but you cannot avoid the struggles of being human."