McKenzie County ND

The questions and answers following the 11-member panel presentation brought the evening to an end at 8:30. Roughly 60 people attended from across the county, and everyone got a chance to eat, ask questions and gather information.

“This is a national as well as a local problem that can only get better if everyone comes together and takes action against the underage drinking problem,” states Karen McDaniel, Region 1 Substance Abuse Prevention coordinator who presented the power point show at the Town Hall Meeting addressing underage drinking March 31, 2008 in the Watford City Civic Center.”Taking the keys away doesn’t prevent these things from occurring,” stated Karen as she read the statistics about 5,000 young people under the age of 21 dying as a result of underage drinking.

• 1,900 from motor vehicle crashes
• 1,600 from homicides
• 300 from suicide
• hundreds from other injuries such as falls, burns and drownings

Underage drinking is a leading public health problem in the United States, and the U.S. Surgeon General has been alerted to new research indicating that the developing adolescent brain may be particularly susceptible to long-term consequences from alcohol use. His call to action has resulted in hundreds of town hall meetings held around the country just like this one.

Some of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey Results from Watford City public school system were reported on slides. (more…)

I thought that April Fool’s Day was an opportune date to announce to our readership that we have created a fantastic award for one of our fantastic people. This is no joke, however. We mean this with all our heart and soul.

The winner of the Iceberg Award is ………… Marcia Hellandsaas!

Marcia deserves to receive the ICEBERG award because as an NDSU county extension agent, Marcia has true-blue depth, and has gone above and beyond the call of duty in organizing meetings, ordering and providing food, distributing printed information, facilitating meetings, obtaining training materials, advertising and putting in hours and hours of after hours work to keep this Horizons program alive and well. Without Marcia, I feel that this program would have crashed and burned before it even got off the ground.

Dale says, “Marcia is like an iceberg in the sense that we realize we see only a fraction of her as she performs her tasks, setting aside her own personal stories, needs and drives in order to meet the goals of the group. And though we often express to the upper 1/8th of Marcia our gratitude, we offer this award in recognition of the 7/8ths that is reserved and may not know how much we admire and appreciate her. Thanks, Marcia!”

Thanks, Marcia, for doing such a fantastic job!

Picture and information credit is due to
http://www.solcomhouse.com/iceberg.htm