Back when April Edwards was a student at Mathews High School, she attended an assembly where an HIV-positive person shared a cautionary tale with Edwards and her classmates.

Years later, Edwards finds herself the parent of a MHS student of her own and an investigator with the Mathews County Sheriff’s Office. Yet that lesson sticks with her to this day.

“The greatest messages … are going to be the ones you can relate to,” she said.

It’s that kind of transformative experience that she hopes will happen when teen motivational speaker Jeff Yalden shares stories with Mathews students next week about the challenges he’s faced along the way.

Yalden will spend the entire day next Thursday, April 19, at MHS, including an assembly with the student body in the morning (from around 8:30 to 10:30) and another assembly at 7 o’clock that night geared toward parents throughout the community. That assembly, which is open to the public, will be held at the ...