Wood County Circuit Court Judge Jason Wharton hopes the Parkersburg High School Memorial Fieldhouse is filled with people next Tuesday night.

Wharton is inviting the community to a presentation by Chris Herren, former NBA player who battled back from substance use addiction and reached 11 years of sobriety this month. He now speaks to students, athletes and community members about substance use and wellness.

Herren will be speaking at 7 p.m. in a program, free to the public and sponsored by the Mid-Ohio Valley Adult Drug Court. Wharton is the local adult drug court judge.

The presentation is titled “Prevention Starts with All: The Chris Herren Story.”

Wharton said the purpose of Tuesday’s program is to prevent substance abuse and to help those in the recovery community see how they can be successful in defeating addiction.

Herren is an author, motivational speaker and wellness advocate. He has founded three organizations — Herren Talks, Herren Project and Herren Wellness — that provide programs and services to help people overcome setbacks and navigate life’s challenges, according to his website herrentalks.com.

“For the community event we are holding, Chris will use his own experiences to relate to those in the audience,” said Kat Boggs, probation officer with Mid-Ohio Valley Adult Drug Court.

“What brought him down the road to addiction and near-death and what brought him to the path of recovery he is on. He is a dynamic speaker and his experiences capture the audience in a way that few have the capacity to do,” said Boggs, who has heard Herren speak on several occasions.

“Chris has a way of personalizing his own experiences in a way that breaks through the barriers of numbness that we have built to protect us from the (drug) epidemic we are facing. I truly believe that every single person who attends this program will come out changed,” Boggs said in an email. “He focuses on the ‘why’ our kids begin using drugs.”

People can just show up for Herren’s talk; reservations are not required. Seating will be in the fieldhouse bleachers.

A question-and-answer session will follow Herren’s talk.

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Chuck Harman, a 1977 graduate of Parkersburg High School, received the top adjunct teaching award at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s international conference in Toronto this month.

Harman has been an adjunct faculty member at West Virginia University Reed College of Media since 1999. For the past 14 years, he has taught the strategic communications for public relations and advertising capstone class.

As part of the capstone class Harman has taken groups of students to Ireland, Italy, Brazil, Spain, Belgium and the United Kingdom to work with nonprofit clients. The WVU seniors will be working to help nonprofits in France and Germany in March 2020.

For the students it is like working in the real world — a global experience for them, said Harman, who received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from WVU.

Harman also works for the National Alliance on Mental Illness as chief development officer.

The WVU students worked with Destination Florida children’s charity that flies children with life-threatening illnesses and conditions from the United Kingdom to Disney locations in Florida. In Brazil, the students helped a breast cancer organization with its visibility and communications. In Spain, the students worked on a campaign to help an art center, situated in a disadvantaged neighborhood, improve its programming and standing in the community.

“Each client finds value in what we do,” Harman said.

Mike Fulton, a 1975 graduate of Parkersburg High School, has been a mentor to students in Harman’s classes and helps them to find jobs after graduation, Harman noted. Fulton, also a WVU graduate, works in public affairs and advocacy with Asher Agency in Washington, D.C. Fulton brings the real world into class, Harman said.

As a student at Parkersburg High School Harman enjoyed working as a sports photographer at The Parkersburg Sentinel for Editor Dave Owen. He got a Sentinel sideline pass to photograph the WVU-North Carolina State football game at the Peach Bowl in 1975.

Chuck is married to Parkersburg native Patty (Handlan) Harman, who works in the WVU Department of Athletics. The couple lives in Morgantown.

Contact Paul LaPann at plapann@newsandsentinel.com