CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Drivers in downtown Chillicothe should plan for brief delays Friday morning, Oct. 30, as the city closes the entrances to Yoctangee Park, along with Enderlin Circle and Alexander Road, for the annual M.A.D.E. Drug Free Rally, a march by area students. The closures were announced in a notice posted by the city of Chillicothe and reported Oct. 28 by the Scioto Valley Guardian.
The roads will close twice during the morning, first from 9:45 to 10 a.m. and again from 11 to 11:15 a.m., according to the city notice cited by the Scioto Valley Guardian. City officials advised drivers to plan alternate routes through downtown during those two short windows, when students will be moving between the park and downtown.
The rally is the annual fall gathering for the local chapter of Drug Free Clubs of America, known in Ross County by the acronym M.A.D.E., which stands for “My Attitude Determines Everything,” the Scioto Valley Guardian reported. Students from Chillicothe and surrounding districts march through downtown in a public show of commitment to staying off drugs, and the event has become an annual fall tradition in the county.
According to the Scioto Valley Guardian, students who join the club pledge to live drug-free and agree to submit to random drug testing. In exchange, members receive an ID card that grants access to school events and discounts at participating local businesses, a structure designed to reward the pledge throughout the school year rather than only on rally day.
Ross County is home to one of the program’s largest chapters, the Scioto Valley Guardian reported, which helps explain the size of the downtown footprint for a student march. The route typically begins at Yoctangee Park before continuing past Enderlin Circle toward downtown, which is why the city said those park entrances and roadways will see the short closures Friday morning.
For families heading to the rally and for workers and shoppers moving through downtown, the practical impact is narrow but worth planning around. Anyone who normally enters Yoctangee Park by car on Friday morning, or uses Enderlin Circle or Alexander Road to cross the area, should expect to be held or rerouted during the two 15-minute windows and allow a few extra minutes outside them while crowds clear.
The rally also offers a different kind of fall morning for Chillicothe: students leading a visible, peer-driven message about staying drug-free, supported by their schools and the city’s coordination of the route. That community backing — from the club chapters in area schools to the city notice helping drivers avoid the march — is part of what has kept the event a recurring fixture on the Ross County fall calendar.
The closures are scheduled only for Friday, Oct. 30, from 9:45 to 10 a.m. and from 11 to 11:15 a.m., and roads are expected to reopen between and after those windows. Drivers who can shift a downtown trip by a few minutes Friday morning should have little trouble avoiding the march altogether.