BYU public relations students taught children the importance of automotive safety at the Utah County Boys and Girls Club, Friday.

The BYU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America hosted the fair, titled "I Choose Safety" as part of the Bateman Competition, a case-study contest involving nearly 400 colleges and universities, nationwide. General Motors and Safe Kids Worldwide are sponsoring this year's competition to promote car safety and raise awareness of GM's safety standards.

The fair included computer games, obstacle courses, a rope-pull and an opportunity to write to children who are hospitalized from car accidents. Cosmo the Cougar arrived halfway through and participated in many of the activities.

"Our goal is to represent [these businesses], to teach kids car safety and emphasize buckling up and why it's important," said Michael J. Wilson, the event coordinator. "You don't always choose to be in an accident, but you can choose to be safe. That's, ultimately, what we're hoping to promote as our main marketing aspect of the campaign."

BYU has not participated in the competition for the past seven years, since the communications class geared toward the competition was dropped.

BYU's chapter renewed its efforts this year, but faced many challenges.

Teams typically spend four months planning and implementing their campaigns for the competition, Wilson said. But due to complications last semester, the previous team disbanded, meaning the new team had less than two weeks to put a campaign together.

"I've had about ten hours of sleep these past three days," Wilson said.

Dale Green, clubhouse director for the Boys and Girls Club of Utah County, said he appreciated the event.

"We love to have groups come in and do activities with the kids," Green said. "It gives us other ideas of what to do with the kids and it gives the kids opportunities to be with more volunteers."

The team will spend the next three weeks gathering data from children's responses, holding focus groups and preparing the ultimate presentation to be sent to the review committee. Winners will be announced in August.

Copyright Brigham Young University 4 Mar 2008