THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn. – The Thief River Falls Lincoln High School "Key Club" was honored by Minnesota Toward Zero Deaths for their work to save lives through improved traffic safety. The awards were announced at the statewide TZD conference Oct. 23-24 in St. Cloud.

Key Club members were honored with the newest TZD Star Award – the Emerging Leader Award – for their outstanding leadership and creative execution of a sustained local teen driver education and outreach campaign. Each April for six years, the Key Club worked with the Pennington County TZD Coalition and Minnesota State Patrol to display crashed vehicles, hold mock crashes, and place traffic safety messages and car parts from actual crashes around the hallways at Lincoln High School. They also held the first TZD Teen Conference in March 2019.

Key Club members on hand to accept the award included students Annika Christenson, Ivy Wiggs, Kyri Christenson, Elaina Ballard and advisors Rosaline Groven and Heidi Carlson.

TZD Star Awards are given annually to individuals and organizations in Minnesota that show excellence in TZD's emphasis areas of enforcement, emergency medical and trauma services, education, engineering, child passenger safety and judicial/court systems. They have shown their leadership and creative capacities in efforts to improve traffic safety throughout the state and build partnerships.

The Minnesota TZD program is an interdisciplinary partnership with the state departments of health, transportation and public safety. This collaboration began 15 years ago and has worked to reduce roadway fatalities by 45 percent.

Learn more about TZD and how to get involved at www.minnesotatzd.org.