MOBILE, Ala. — Television production students at two Mobile County high schools have taken top honors in an AT&T-sponsored competition designed to keep teenagers from texting behind the wheel, with the winning videos now airing across local networks and the district’s own television channel.
AT&T decided to change its approach this year to its long-running “Don’t Text and Drive” school workshops, betting that a peer-to-peer message would resonate more than another adult-led presentation. “We have learned that if we want kids to hear the message, it’s better to have it come from other kids,” said Gigi Armbrecht, AT&T’s public relations executive for Mobile.
To put that idea into action, AT&T sponsored a video contest open to television production classes across the Mobile County school system. Seven high schools entered the competition, with student teams using GoPro cameras to produce 30-second public service announcements aimed at their peers.
Baker High School’s entry took first place, while Citronelle High School’s submission finished as runner-up. Both spots debuted publicly at the Mobile County school board’s Oct. 27 meeting before going into wider rotation on local television networks and on the Mobile County Public School System’s own TV channel, which broadcasts on Comcast channel 15 and AT&T U-verse’s on-demand channel 99.
Baker High’s winning video, produced by the school’s “BH1” student team, earned an additional honor: it will be featured on AT&T’s national “It Can Wait” campaign website, a platform dedicated to raising awareness about the dangers of distracted driving on a much larger scale than the local competition.
Armbrecht praised the contrasting approaches the two schools took to the same subject matter. She said Baker’s video leaned into entertainment value before delivering a serious message at the end, while Citronelle’s entry took a more fact-driven approach and involved dozens of students in its production — what she called “a completely different approach” to the same core message.
The contest reflects a broader push by AT&T and school districts nationwide to combat distracted driving among newly licensed teen drivers, a demographic public safety officials have long identified as especially vulnerable to the risks of texting behind the wheel. By putting the message in the hands of students themselves, organizers hope the videos will carry more weight with the audience they’re meant to reach.