On Friday, September 26, 2025, the students of NMS had an assembly called “Stay In Your Lane.” Typically students like assemblies since we get out of class, but this one was different. That assembly made me and everyone around me rethink our life decisions. I have never been more shocked in my life. But thanks to Michael DeLeon, our speaker, he definitely changed the meaning of life for me.
Michael DeLeon is a man with a lot of childhood trauma that affected him later on in his life. He suffered from family deaths, trauma and drug abuse within his life span so far and that’s why he goes to schools to tell his story. Using his life story, he became a producer and made music videos for celebrities like Jelly Roll, the country singer. He goes around all fifty states to share his story with students about “Staying in Your Lane.”
Michael began the assembly by telling us about his childhood and how he grew up poor. He said that it was like “one of those trailer park movies.” He made a joke about how people would be sarcastic and say they had dirt on their floor but in reality his floor was almost a dirt floor. He had a little sister but he never told us her name; he said that they looked alike in their second grade year book photo. They both looked like they were well educated, smart, a good person and taught well. But that changed when we saw his sixth grade year book photo. In the sixth grade, his life turned upside down. Instead of earning all A’s he barely had a D’s; he got into fights and his behavior was awful. This was all because his mom and dad got a divorce so he only saw his dad on the weekends.
Michael was getting mentally and physically abused in his childhood a lot and that led him to follow the wrong group of people. He got involved with meth, cigarettes/cigars, cocaine, drinking and other drugs. Michael had a friend named Steve who introduced Michael into drugs. Steve was seventeen while Michael was around eleven when they were taking drugs. But the worst part about all of this is: he did do time in rehab but it is so hard when you get back into the reality of life. His mistakes and choices in life were starting to affect others. Like his mother. A gang that was after him came to his mom’s house and killed her, but the saddest thing was she died on Mother’s day.
Could you imagine having that weight on your shoulders? This made him realize that he needed to be clean and he pushed himself to be clean for the second time. He got a job, started to get a connection with his kids again, moved in with his now wife, and started to find what his hobbies and other skills that now help him in his current job now. So now he advocates for kids who are tempted to buy from these big companies who sell these addictive substances.
After all, this presentation was one of the most heart warming and shocking presentations I have ever been to. I feel like this is a subject that needed to be talked about to help influence kids and their decisions. And I know this changed some kids’ minds because at least five of our students turned in vapes. We’ve all learned not to make Michael life choices and we are so thankful that he came to our school.
I have asked our seventh and eighth grade history teacher Mrs. Parry on how she felt about the presentation. She said,“In my opinion, the drug awareness assembly that we had on Friday, September 26th, was one of the best assemblies we have ever had at the middle school. The speaker had such an impactful message. His life story included so much trauma and sadness, and at times it was shocking and hard to hear. He didn’t sugarcoat his message because he wanted to impress upon our students how important it is to reach out to a trusted adult for help. He shared his story of making bad decisions, heartbreak and painful loss in order to show all of us that our past does not define us, and there are ways to get help and make better decisions. He encouraged students to make good choices and to talk to a teacher, a principal, or a family member for help when bad things are happening to them and around them. I was so impressed by the strength and courage that it had to take for him to tell his story. I am really glad that I got to hear his message that day and I hope we all learned something from it.”
If you want to know more about our speaker Michael Deleon, here is his website :