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Ed Koch Las Vegas Sun

Sunday, Nov. 13, 2005 | 8:02 a.m.

The Sun Youth Forum had been selected as the American Legion Auxiliary's Golden Press Award winner as the nation's best local newspaper program for youths, an award Brian accepted at the group's national convention in Atlanta.

"It was validation for the efforts that the Sun and the Clark County School District had aspired to," said Brian, now president and editor of the Sun.

"But it was not about getting an award, because we did not start the Youth Forum to win awards -- we are not about awards. We started it to give the best and brightest young minds a voice in the community -- a chance to speak and have adults listen, even if it is just for one day a year."

The 50th anniversary of the Sun Youth Forum will be Nov. 22, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Nearly 1,000 juniors and seniors from 47 local public and private high schools are scheduled to participate.

This year's forum will include a drawing in which 670 seniors will get a shot at 10 scholarships worth $1,000 each.

For not being about awards, the Sun Youth Forum has won its fair share of them locally, statewide and nationally over the past half century.

The first came following the inaugural 1956 forum that attracted 96 students, for which the Sun received the Nevada State Press Association's Community Service Award. Last year, the forum was inducted into the Excellence in Education Hall of Fame.

"The best award -- and reward -- we have have gotten over the years is when students, principals and others come up to us and say, 'That was one of the best programs I have ever been a part of,' " Greenspun said.

"My father always had an interest in what his children and other youths had to say. He derived a number of ideas from what young people told him."

Hank Greenspun died in 1989, but the forum continues as one of his legacies.

Many forum student participants have gone on to be community leaders, including Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

In 1955 Hank Greenspun approached members of the Sun staff with a concept to gather students at a single location, have them debate topics that interested them and then choose peers to write columns that would run in the Sun to tell the public of the opinions they generated.

Although community leaders were -- and still are -- used to moderate the groups, they are instructed not to try to change the students' opinions. Their job is to introduce topics and maintain orderly discussions so that more free thoughts can be brought forward from all participants, Greenspun said.

This year's moderators include Greenspun, Greenspun Media Group President Danny Greenspun, Berkley, U.S. District Judge Philip Pro, Clark County District Attorney David Roger, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.

At the forum, students are assigned to one of seven groups -- law and crime, school days, around the world, teen topics, home in Nevada, America and potpourri.

Representatives from each group are selected to either write Where I Stand columns for the Sun that run in December, write columns that run in the Class! student newspaper or appear on a discussion panel on UNLV-TV, Cox cable channel 70.

This year, student representatives also will appear on a panel on "Observations," a radio program, produced and hosted by Nevada Broadcasters Association Chief Executive Officer Bob Fisher. The program is aired on 13 stations statewide.

Over the Sun Youth Forum's history, its formula has changed little.

"It seems every time we've tried to fine-tune the formula, we wind up going back to what has long worked well for us," said Brian Cram, director of the Greenspun Family Foundation and a former superintendent of Clark County schools who has been associated with the Sun Youth Forum for more than 35 years.

"The amazing longevity of the forum speaks to the fact that it is viewed as valuable by students, the School District and the Sun. One reason for the forum's survival is that each student comes in as an equal and empowered player whose opinions are encouraged and valued."

Cram said students sometimes see issues with greater clarity "because they are not bogged down with a lot of history or traditions. They tend to tell it like it is."

Greenspun echoed that opinion, noting that young people need the forum because many of them tend to question whether adults care about what they have to say.

"More and more in today's world, we are all being told what we should think," Greenspun said.

"The forum allows students to challenge the status quo. Tomorrow's solutions will arise from today's ideas. And while some adults still believe that children should be seen and not heard, I have found in my life that I have learned much from listening to what younger people have to say."

The forum topics over the years have been controversial, including discussion of civil rights in the earliest days of the civil rights movement, whether teens should have easier access to birth control, whether abortion should remain legal, whether marijuana should be legalized, the Middle East and AIDS.

"I have found that as each Youth Forum has taken place, the students are brighter and more knowledgeable than those from years before," Greenspun said.

"The indicator from the Sun Youth Forum that is clear to me is that, despite concerns by some, we will be in better hands when the next generation takes over. The kids demonstrate that they really care about their tomorrow."

Ed Koch can be reached at (702) 259-4090 or at koch@lasvegassun.com.