Staff reports

A Spanish-language presentation at 7 p.m. Friday at the Old Walnut Theater will feature a 15-minute Spanish-dubbed video and a discussion time afterward.

The English-language presentation at 7 p.m. Monday at the Grand Theatre will feature the video and a panel of experts talking about issues pertaining to underage drinking.

"We want to focus the issue to community members about the harm of underage drinking. Too long we have accepted underage drinking as a right of passage," said Randy See, prevention project coordinator with the Grand Island Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition. "However, it's the No. 1 drug youth use."

The town hall meeting is a result of former U.S. Surgeon General Kenneth Moritsugu's Call to Action on Underage Drinking and is sponsored by the federal government's Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Underage Drinking.

The town hall meeting is a way to engage parents, schools, communities, all levels of government, all social systems that interface with youth, and youth themselves in a coordinated national effort to prevent and reduce underage drinking and its consequences.

Results of the Nebraska Risk and Protective Factor Student Survey 2005, administered in Grand Island, indicate that 18 percent of sixth-grade youth, 35 percent of eighth-grade youth, 60.7 percent of 10th-grade youth and 68 percent of seniors taking the survey reported using alcohol during their lifetime.

"What parents may not realize is the children say that their parents' disapproval of underage drinking is the key reason they have chosen not to drink," said Charles G. Curie, chairman of the Interagency Coordinating Committee for the Prevention of Underage Drinking and administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.