TUPELO – More than 25 students form the Boys & Girls Club in Tupelo gathered around a beat-up yellow car at the BancorpSouth Arena, and with red paint wrote phrases like, “Crush Bullying,” and “Be Nice.”

The students were decorating a Monster Jam crush car that will be crushed by the Pablo Huffaker and Grave Digger truck tonight.

Stedmon Yeates, 10, helped paint the car.

“When people see, ‘No bullying,’ on the car, they’ll know bullying is bad,” Stedmon said. “And then we’re going to crush it.”

Stedmon said bullying hasn’t been a problem for him but that he’ll stand up for a kid who’s being bullied.

The National Education Association estimates 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by another student.

“Anywhere we can bring a little fun and awareness to the people who need it, we try to,” said Huffaker. “Bullying is a problem and in order to bring awareness to that, they have painted a car and we are going to crush it at the Monster Jam.”

The Boys & Girls Club has a program called NBA, “No Bullying Allowed,” where students are taught to not only abstain from bullying, but also to make a conscious effort to be nice.

“This is one of the things the Boys and Girls Club and Monster Jam are promoting, crushing bullying,” said Clubhouse Director Mattie Mabry.

Monster Jam continues Saturday with a show at 2 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

jb.clark@journalinc.com