"What if it Were You?" As seen in POZ Magazine Power Surge by Bob Ickes Collin Burke, a high school senior from Madison, Wisconsin, says he took art class “by accident.” The teacher soon had Burke and his classmates entering the “What If It Were You?” AIDS-poster contest. “We had to demonstrate ‘What would you do if you found you had AIDS,’ ” says Burke, 18. “My poster expresses that I would try to make the world understand the facts. You know, like a lightbulb going on.” He took first place out of 100 competitors; the poster will decorate buses, hair salons and diners throughout Madison. Says AIDS activist Bob Bowers, who sponsors the program through HIVictorious.org, “We picked Collin’s poster and thought we knew everything about him—until he was interviewed by the media and we found out that his uncle died of AIDS before he was born.” Says Burke: “I wish I had known him.” CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ARTICLE ONLINE

Students learn to stay HIVictorious
Katjusa Cisar
Correspondent for The Capital Times

What if it were you? What if you were HIV positive?

Collin Burke would "teach the world to understand." A senior at Madison Memorial High School, he is the first place winner in the second round of the "What if it were you?" poster contest, a project of the local AIDS-awareness group HIVictorious. Winners and runners-up in the contest are being announced today in a ceremony at Memorial.

Burke's poster depicts a light bulb with a red AIDS-awareness ribbon instead of a filament -- "like, 'Oh, I get it," he said.

At 18, Burke has never known a world without the AIDS virus. His uncle was one of the first in Madison to die of AIDS, before Burke was even born.

"I never knew him, but it's been with my family. It's just slowly sunk in," he said.

Kids in high school now weren't around for the disease's devastating first decade, and this has led to a generation gap in awareness, according to Bob Bowers, who leads HIVictorious and several other AIDS-awareness initiatives in the area.

As the rate of HIV infection reaches highs in Dane County not seen since 1992, Bob Bowers (bottom center) reaches out to students, such as this La Follette High School class, to have them confront a disease that got the most attention before they were born.

Complacency set in with the advent of life-lengthening protease inhibitor drugs in 1995, and as a result, "kids think medication is the cure, so they're apathetic. They think, 'I can just take one pill.'"

This dismissive attitude among teens could be dangerous. In 2004 and 2006, Dane County had the highest rates of new HIV infections since 1992, and one in five of these infections were in the 15-24 age range, according to the Wisconsin Department of Health AIDS/HIV Program.

And despite advances in AIDS treatment, medication isn't just a quick pill-pop. It's a toxic cocktail of drugs that ultimately offers no cure, costs up to thousands of dollars per month and can make you feel even sicker.

Bowers would know. He's been HIV-positive for 25 years, on disability since 1986. He vomits regularly after taking his morning mix of pills. The vomiting used to happen so often and so violently that he needed hernia surgery. He's been in and out of emergency rooms for years and dealt with excruciating side effects.

You wouldn't know it to look at him: the man has tattoos wrapped around his beefy arms and torso, and thick biceps the size of small rotisserie chickens. A former personal trainer, he's been told he looks like a "pirate that eats small children."

It's all image, he protests: "I'm the most sensitive guy. I was in a fight when I was in third grade and when I was 19. I'm Jewish -- I worry about everything."

A candid message

Image helps when Bowers gives presentations to high school students, which he's been doing more than 20 years. He also tells his story to the art classes involved in the "What if it were you?" contests. At a recent presentation at Middleton Alternative Senior High, he wore a long basketball jersey, big rings on his fingers and a chain hooking his wallet to his pants.

But emulating a hip teen image seems less important to students than his candid, no-nonsense approach.

He comes right out with what everyone wants to know but is afraid to ask: he contracted HIV in January of 1983 in a hotel room in Los Angeles while shooting up crystal meth with his girlfriend and another couple.

"I'd never seen a syringe before in my life. I knew I was doing the wrong thing, but I didn't want to be" seen as a wimp, he said. He recalls his girlfriend pressuring him, telling him sex would be great when they were high. Two years later, his barber noticed swollen lymph glands while cutting his hair.

Bowers combines this candidness with blunt safe sex tips and arresting statistical comparisons ("Three million of our brothers and sisters died in 2006 from AIDS. That's 20 fully-loaded jets crashing daily for a year").

Educating kids about HIV/AIDS and condoms is something federal-funded organizations, like AIDS Network of Madison, can't do easily because of funding restrictions that limit their education efforts to high-risk populations.

"Currently, the feds don't believe that high school kids are at risk. The other restriction we've seen is the trend toward funding abstinence-only messages. We believe that it's important for people to get info regardless of where they might fall on a risk scale," said Bob Power, former executive director of the AIDS Network.

What's so powerful about Bowers, he added, is that his message can remain unhampered by these restrictions.

Bowers wishes the government would broaden its scope: "Federal money only wants to target men having sex with men, women of color and drug users. They're not giving funding to the general public. As liberal and compassionate as we are, there's not everyday awareness beyond a couple token days a year."

Poster power

The poster project is a "proactive way to carry the message," said Bowers. Each contest targets four area high schools. The first one took place last spring, and 500 copies of the winning poster, by Shaina Langlois of Shabazz High School, went up around Dane County.

"We smothered State Street," he said.

Langlois drew a crying girl accompanied with the words, "I would smile through the tears." Now a liberal arts transfer student at Madison Area Technical College, she says Bowers is a "great person to head such an organization. He's been through it."

Sixteen-year-old Kacey Montgomery of Memorial, who won an honorable mention in the current contest, said would follow in the footsteps of Bowers if she were HIV positive. "Live, love andeducate" was the message on her poster, under a computer animation drawing that distorted the silhouettes of Flea and Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, her favorite band.

After hearing Bowers talk to her art class, she said "He's not like a motivational speaker. Kids can relate to him more. I definitely think it's a good group to target. We're young and once we learn, we'll know how to protect ourselves in the future."

If Bowers could to go back to that moment in the Los Angeles hotel room when he was 19, he said he wouldn't change what happened.

"It's my gift: to wake up every day and do my best. It makes me realize how precious life is."

Besides the poster contest, HIVictorious has also been soliciting local politicians for answers to the question "What if it were you?"

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin responded, "I have had dear friends who died courageously with this disease over the years. In all my actions, I would strive to live every day with their spirit leading me."

THE WINNERS

These Dane County high school students were awarded for their entries in the "What if it were you?" poster contest to promote HIV awareness.

First place: Collin Burke, Memorial

Second place: Kevin Julka, Memorial

Honorable Mentions:

Kacey Montgomery, Memorial

Liz Novoa, Memorial

Bailey Wallace, Wisconsin Heights High School

Kendra Barman, Wisconsin Heights High School

Kali Weber, Wisconsin Heights High School

Amber Pirus, La Follette High School

Masha Pavlova, La Follette High School

Emily Payne, Operation Fresh Start