Families remember victims of DUI crash

Friday, April 30, 2004 | 9:40 a.m.

Although the families packed into Silvestri Junior High School in southeast Las Vegas Thursday night ate, danced and laughed, a sober undercurrent ran through the crowd in memory of three Henderson teens killed in a drunken driving wreck.

The Just Keep Thinking Safety: Josh Parry, Kyle Poff, Travis Dunning Memorial Foundation was created by friends of the three teenagers who died last year. Thursday night's family evening was the foundation's first event.

The foundation will push for new laws and fund school programs on driver education and alcohol awareness.

"They were really popular," 14-year-old Mindy Dahl said of the three boys who lost their lives in the Nov. 10, 2003, crash.

"School was very quiet after it happened. A lot of people didn't want to talk about it."

Jasmine Garner, 13, joined the foundation after the Silvestri Junior High School student council encouraged it.

"I am a teenager and I took a pledge not to drink and drive," Garner said.

Although Jeree Heter, 11, did not know any of the crash victims, he has already joined the foundation. "It's never too soon," he said.

The foundation grew a little over a month ago after the meeting of two groups of parents with different opinions on how to punish a teen who killed three of his friends in a crash while driving drunk.

Moms on a Mission member Delise Sartini said the parents found a common objective. Moms on a Mission, made up of mothers from well-connected families, had urged that the driver in the fatal Nov. 10 accident be tried as a juvenile.

The parents of the victims demanded a harsher punishment.

"We were all mothers of teenagers and we knew we could be on either side of the tragedy," Sartini, mother of a 16- and 19-year-old sons, said. "We were all working for the same thing."

In the Nov. 10 accident, a 16-year-old boy crashed his car into a Henderson block wall with four friends as passengers. Three of them -- Travis Dunning, Josh Parry and Kyle Poff, all 15 -- died. The fourth, Cody Frederick, was seriously injured.

Months after the crash, the public debated about whether the driver should be tried as an adult, which could have sent him to prison. His February plea bargain included a two-year stint in the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center and 600 hours of community service.

Moms on a Mission includes Monica Guinn, daughter of Gov. Kenny Guinn, Sartini, Jill Fertitta, members of the family that owns Station Casinos, Nicki Quinn and Kathy Black.

The foundation has raised more than $65,000.