Perhaps the most useful information presented at Thursday night’s Town Hall Meeting on Underage Drinking in Lovell was a survey of students taken just last week.


According to moderator Chad Lindsay, director of the Big Horn County Health Coalition, a brief survey was presented to Lovell High School students in health class in anticipation of Thursday’s “meeting of the minds” at the Lovell Community Center.


Two simple questions were asked to around 40 students: “Why do students drink?” and “What is the best way to prevent underage drinking?” Responses were open-ended, he said, but he categorized them into basic responses for the purposes of the town hall meeting.


The results? Of those students who responded to the “Why?” question, 41 percent responded, in essence, “peer pressure.” Another 22 percent responded, “nothing to do.” Eleven percent each responded “home influence” or “feels good” and 8 percent said “depression.”


As for the “best way to prevent drinking” question, 36 percent replied “activities,” 22 percent said “education,” 11 percent each replied “don’t or can’t prevent it” or “positive peer pressure,” and 8 percent each replied “punishment” or “prohibition.”


Other than that, although the meeting was well-attended, it was mostly health care professionals, law enforcement, school officials and parents in essence “preaching to the choir” with only a handful of students attending.


Lindsay began by noting that the meeting was designed to be an awareness meeting rather than a meeting to point fingers, to “know where we are and get a baseline to try to help our kids,” adding, “The purpose of the coalition is to help kids make healthy decisions and succeed in life.”


Much of Thursday’s meeting was interactive, with Lindsay employing an electronic polling system through which participants answered questions about underage drinking levels and were then told the percentages from the 2006 Wyoming Prevention Needs Assessment and other date sources.


Questions were broken down by Wyoming, Big Horn County, Lovell and Rocky Mountain/Burlington responses among sixth, eighth, 10th and 12th graders. In general, according to the survey, drinking rates were higher throughout the state and county than in the north end of Big Horn County. For instance, according to the prevention needs assessment, 51 percent of Wyoming 12 graders in 2006 said they had not consumed alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey, compared to 63 percent of Big Horn County seniors in 2006, 67 percent of LHS seniors and 78 percent of Rocky/Burlington seniors.


Among 10th-graders in 2006, 60 percent of students statewide said they had not consumed alcohol in the past month compared to 68 percent in Big Horn County, 64 percent at Rocky/Burlington and 79 percent in Lovell. Among eighth-graders, the rates of “not drinking” in 2006 were 73 percent in Wyoming and Big Horn County, 75 percent in Rocky/Burlington schools and 80 percent in Lovell.


Sixth-grade “not-drinking” rates in 2006 were 93 percent in Wyoming, 91 percent in Big Horn County, 91 percent in Rocky/Burlington schools and 96 percent in Lovell.


One statistic that raised a few eyebrows among the attendees was that, according to the Wyoming Alcohol Use Issues Survey from 2006, only 49.3 percent of Big Horn County residents drink alcohol.


Lindsay next addressed prevention and cited 2006 statistics from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.


According to the institute, environmental strategies for alcohol abuse prevention include keeping the legal drinking age at 21, enacting zero tolerance laws, increasing enforcement of existing laws and increasing the price of alcohol.


Individual strategies for prevention include school-based resistance education and family-based strategies.

Lindsay concluded the meeting by turning to a panel of law enforcement, counseling, health and local government officials composed of Lovell Chief of Police Nick Lewis, Sheriff Ken Blackburn, physician’s assistant Ken Ferbrache, PA-C, Lovell Mayor Bruce Morrison, Health Coalition Prevention Counselor Megan Garza and LHS Counselor Tawnya Teter.


Asked if there is more of an underage drinking problem in the north or south ends of Big Horn County, Sheriff Blackburn said the drinking rates are “fairly close.” Ferbrache, who has worked emergency rooms at both ends of the county, agreed that the rate is “pretty equal.”
Chief Lewis noted that he was embarrassed while attending an alcohol abuse symposium in Jackson a few years ago to discover that Big Horn County was number one in the state in the percentage of liquor establishments that sold alcohol to minors – around 75 percent – according to a statewide study.


“I was appalled that we were the worst in Wyoming,” he said.


But with better education and enforcement, the rate or serving to minors has plunged, he said, and in checks conducted during the last year or so, two of the checks found no clerk serving to minors, and one check found two clerks who served and were cited.


“At least we’re making headway,” he said.


Blackburn explained his zero tolerance policy by saying that citizens would not tolerate a person wielding a knife or a gun in a threatening manner, noting that people would consider him to be derelict in his duty if he didn’t take care of a situation. And yet a drunk driver in control of a vehicle is “a 5,000-pound bullet.”


He said he has seen images that will never leave his mind while investigating the carnage of a drunk driving crash. He said he isn’t out to “pick on people” but said one of his missions is to “protect youths from themselves until they are accountable and can make decisions.”


Ferbrache said law enforcement doesn’t do parents any favors by taking youths home rather than citing them when they are found with alcohol, and he said he has often had people upset with him in the ER when he urged them to “step up to the plate and do what’s necessary.”


Morrison noted that the health coalition lobbied the town council to keep visibility of alcohol off the streets during Mustang Days, and the council and police department responded.


Teter said the good news is that most students are not drinking, which helps with efforts to deter underage drinking.


Lindsay concluded by thanking liquor establishments for their efforts to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors.