Over the past three years, Drew Corrigan has prevented teenagers from blowing out their eardrums while using power tools, severely injuring themselves while chopping down trees and frying their skin while working outdoors.

Because when Corrigan isn’t being a normal Sisters High School student, he’s Safety Man: a superhero who will stop at nothing to save young people from hazards in the workplace.

“We like having fun and making people laugh,” said Corrigan, the co-director, producer and star of Safety Man public service announcements. “The videos do have a safety message, but we try to make them entertaining.”

Corrigan and his friend, Sisters High School senior Mitch Keranen, are the creators of a series of award-winning safety PSAs and are finalists in this year’s annual Oregon Young Employee Safety Coalition video competition for their work “Safety Man III: A Fistful of Sunscreen.”

The video is a minute-and-a-half long, Western-themed film that promotes the use of sunscreen for those working outdoors. Last year, the pair took the $500 top prize in the competition, and the year before that, Corrigan placed second in the annual contest for the first installment of the Safety Man saga he made with another friend.

The safety coalition is in its fifth year of holding the contest, a statewide competition that challenges students to create appealing videos geared toward promoting young worker safety awareness. The winner of the competition will be selected at a screening event in Salem at the end of April. Winning videos are often used by the organization for various youth training events and in professional workplaces. Eight videos from high schools across the state have been selected as finalists this year.

“Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not the video relates the theme and gets the message out in a creative and original way,” said Melanie Mesaros, public information officer with the Oregon OSHA. “Did it have youth appeal? Would young people be inspired by the video?”

The top three entries receive between $300 and $500, and the organization also matches that amount and donates it to the winners’ schools. Last year, the $500 went toward Sisters High School’s social studies program, Principal Joseph Hosang said.

Corrigan and Keranen filmed this year’s video in Corrigan’s backyard, a setting that provided a perfect backdrop for a Western with its sagebrush and juniper.

“Drew had a cowboy hat in his closet, so the Western theme just grew out of that,” saidKeranen, 17. “It seemed appropriate.”

One of the things that has set the filmmaking duo apart from the competition is the humor they thread through the short PSAs. However, being funny doesn’t necessarily equal winning. Meeting all the contest criteria while being creative is the secret to making a winning video, Keranen said.

“It’s really easy for us to make a hilarious video, but the key is to pay attention to the requirements,” Keranen said. “A lot of people just skim over that part.”

Corrigan and Keranen first became interested in film their freshman year of high school when they created a video for an assignment in their English class. The two have also made other films, including ones for the school’s sports program and local mountain biking competitions. Corrigan has even made a video about the city of Sisters that may be used by the local chamber of commerce.

After last year’s win, Corrigan invested his winnings into upgrading his video software and camera equipment.

“It’s really cool to be able to win,” Corrigan said. “It’s been a big motivation for us.”

See the video

To view the safety video PSA created by Sisters High School students Drew Corrigan and Mitch Keranen, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/OregonSafetyHealth and click on “Safety Man III: A Fistful of Sunscreen.”