By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
GREAT BEND — A group of local high school and middle school students attended Wednesday's meeting of the Barton County Commission to let commissioners know what they are doing to cut down on teen smoking and vaping. The students are part of a youth-led organization called the Youth Crew. They talked about their visit to the State Capitol on March 3 for "Take Down Tobacco Day" where they met with the county's state legislators.
The group also told commissioners about tobacco use in their schools. Great Bend High School sophomore Jasmine Figueroa described a problem with vaping.
“We don’t have a female administrator at the high school here, so you walk into the girls’ bathroom, like in The Commons, and there’s just girls vaping everywhere,” Figueroa said. “One of the principals there, he has to knock to come in, so that gives an opportunity for girls just to put it away, hide it. So that is one of our problems here.”
Students from Great Bend Middle School and Hoisington High School also said that vaping use is prevalent in their schools.
Katelyn Sigler, a health educator with the Barton County Health Department, is advising the students involved with Youth Crew. County Commissioner Jennifer Schartz was joined by the other commissioners in a short dialogue with Sigler about the issue.
"Is your group working with high school administrators to try to facilitate a stronger policy of any sort?” Schartz asked.
“We have not yet,” Sigler responded. “That’s one of our goals, is to get with them and talk about maybe better options.”
“I can’t speak for the rest of the commissioners, but if it would help to have a commissioner sign a letter of some sort of support for your group, I would be happy to do that,” Schartz said.
Other commissioners expressed their support for Schartz’ recommendation.
“That would be amazing,” Sigler said.
To help promote their anti-tobacco campaign, the Youth Crew is sponsoring a kickball tournament called "Kick the Habit" on Saturday, March 26 at 1 p.m. at the Great Bend Sports Complex. Registration is $5 at ckpartnership.org.