Lawrence High School students Taylor Bussinger, left, and Andy Urban helped create a list of activities for youth to do in Lawrence other than drinking alcohol. Bussinger and Urban last week demonstrated some of the items on the list - like climbing a tree in South Park.

Lawrence High School students Andy Urban (left) and Taylor Bussinger race shooters - one of the listed activities for youth to do in Lawrence other than drinking alcohol.

This is positive peer pressure.

Lawrence parents and school administrators are calling it a perfect storm in educating students about drinking’s harm.

The school district received a $500 grant in the same year a group of 22 students from Lawrence and Free State high schools were willing to make anti-alcohol presentations to junior high students.

“It’s like TiVo. If we have fun, we’d really like to remember it,” said Kelly O’Toole, a Free State junior involved in Youth Against Drugs and Alcohol.

The juniors and seniors who volunteered received training and also recently made presentations to classes at West Junior High School. They plan to visit the three other junior high schools before the end of the school year. Next year, advisers hope students can make presentations to other high school students.

“I like educating them and teaching them that you don’t have to drink to have fun,” said Jessi Hoover, an LHS senior. “You can have fun and not have to serve really bad consequences.”

The key, she said, is to find a group of friends who has also made a decision not to drink, which takes away some pressure.

“High school has so many different things you can get involved in,” said Ali Jacobsen, a Free State junior.

LHS senior Taylor Bussinger and junior Andy Urban made a list that includes 125 things to do in Lawrence other than just going to the movies or bowling every weekend, Hoover said.

To get more specific for fun: go on a shopping spree at a dollar store; memorize your favorite dances and perform them; participate in a scavenger hunt; go hiking; play capture the flag at night; make a cardboard house; take random T bus rides; catch fireflies; play laser tag; or go fishing, day or night.

“They are things you did as a kid or something that you wouldn’t just think of to do maybe with a group of friends,” O’Toole said.

Members of a Lawrence task force to fight underage drinking say they face the challenge of having Kansas University in the city where high school students can socialize with college students who have their own housing.

Olivia Ewert, LHS senior, said several high school students spend time with college students who are OK with underage drinking. But she said KU also has several prevention groups working on the issue as well.

It illustrates the importance of why the YADA students stress to junior high students whom they should socialize with.

“For me, I do have a strong group of friends, and it’s really not as bad as it seems. That’s the main thing we try to tell them,” O’Toole said.

LHS prevention specialist Diane Ash said students involved in YADA are positive role models for junior high students before they get to high school. Ash and Peggy Nelson, a Free State prevention specialist, have been advising YADA students at each school this year.

Ash said the students ponder the long-term consequences of drinking instead of thinking of it as a way to have fun on a whim.

“These students have thought about it, and they’ve thought about what they believe in,” she said.