Don’t Let It Fall Apart

PULLMAN - As a mem- ber of the Washington News- paper Publishers Associa- tion, a group that represents smaller newspapers like The Times, I was invited to be a publisher-in-residence at WSU for two days earlier this month.

In front of about a dozen different classes and groups of students, I explored the importance of fundamental writing skills in my career and theirs. They were from different majors, including journalism, public relations, advertising and marketing.

I also met with the staff of the Daily Evergreen campus newspaper and Lawrence Pintak, the dean of the Edward R. Murrow School of Journalism. We're proud, of course, to have a former Ev- ergreen staffer and Cougar, Morgan Smith, as our Times assistant editor and many in the newsroom at WSU re- member her fondly.

On my last afternoon on campus, with its tall office towers and dorms, I grateful- ly obtained a day pass to the student rec center to work out and ran into two local Waits- burg High School alumni, Nick Carpenter and Michael Matthews, who were just coming in from a run.

We chatted for a while. Nick is now a senior and will graduate soon. Michael is a sophomore. Neither of them runs competitively anymore like they did as Cardinals, but they obviously still enjoy the sport.

After a few minutes, the topic turned to recent event on campus, particularly a disturbing trend pointed out to me to the Daily Evergreen's editor Derek Harrison. This school year alone, the news- paper reported on six accidents in which students had fallen out of dorm windows, in some cases from a signifi- cant height.

Thankfully, there had been no fatalities. Most mi- raculously, one student sur- vived a fall from an 11-story window because his fall was broken by a tree. Nick said he had walked by the tree one day after the fall and saw how the branches were sheered and broken on one side.

It's not that any of the falls were all that unusual of themselves. They appear to happen every year. What's remarkable is their number this year and their probable cause. In all but one of the accidents, heavy drinking preceded the mishaps, which were the result of a loss of control or irresponsible stunts, according to the Daily Evergreen journalists I spoke to.

The editor, who said WSU has a reputation as a party campus with prolific alcohol consumption, blamed the spike in falls on excessive (or binge) drinking and noted that, in many cases, it's a be- havior freshmen bring with them from their years in high school.

Our high schools in the Touchet Valley aren't im- mune to underage drinking. This week's front page story by Smith about teen drug and alcohol use underscores that, though there has been some progress in some respects.

Inndividual students' re- sistance to the counterproductive and potentially dan- gerous popularity of binge drinking can use and should get a boost.

That's why programs like Dayton High School's Draw The Line, in which students pledge to stay away from booze and adults commit not to provide it to them, are so important.

According to the website "Learn About Alcoholism," nearly a quarter of those who begin drinking before the age of 17 become alcoholics, compared to 10 percent of those who begin drinking after the age of 21.

The same site warns that binge drinking carries signifi- cant risks, including alcohol poisoning, liver disease, cardiovascular disease, neu- rological damage, intentional injuries and, as we see on the WSU campus, unintentional injuries such as falls, not to mention car accidents.

But even without a for- mal program, high school students in the valley should make a pledge to themselves to avoid the pitfalls of sub- stance abuse. The last thing we want to do at the Times is report on any WSU falling incident involving Touchet Valley alumni, not to men- tion the long-term dangers.