Sun Youth Forum brings out students’ passion

In the minutes before the annual Sun Youth Forum was set to begin Monday, Liberty High School students Jaiden Tanksluy and Elijah Bedolla nervously waited for their turn to join the discussion.

The forum was created in 1956 by Las Vegas Sun founder and publisher Hank Greenspun, who believed adults should listen to the thoughts and opinions of a younger generation. Now in its 65th year, the event has carried on through multiple presidential administrations, wars and significant historical periods.

And now, it was time for another batch of seniors and juniors to give their feedback. About 550 students from 52 Las Vegas-area high schools discussed local, national and global topics at Clark High.

“I’m fairly nervous because it’s speaking in front of people about America and it’s a very broad topic, as well,” Tanksluy said. “But I’m excited because you get to talk with like-minded people about the same topic.”

The topics they discussed included women’s reproductive rights, mental health support for high school students, international relations, gun control and immigration.

Each room of students chose a representative to write a column in the Las Vegas Sun or appear on PBS.

Deandra Duggans, vice president of brand marketing for the Las Vegas Aces, led one of the sessions on Teen Topics — which ranged from regulating internet access for minors to lowering the drinking age to 18. It was her first time moderating.

“It’s been pretty interesting just to see the students’ perspectives and how prepared they are for the conversation and just their honest opinion about the topics — like, these are topics that I think, you know, that I’m interested in too,” said Duggans, who has nieces and nephews in high school.

Some of Duggans’ favorite conversations from the day were about mental health and internet regulation for minors. She said it was interesting and important to hear how passionate the students were about those topics, especially given that it affects them in such a personal way.

After Duggans introduced a question regarding the impact of unrestricted internet access on youths, students’ hands shot up in the air — many of whom hadn’t participated in previous conversations.

One student said she walked in on her younger brother watching videos on YouTube filled with people cursing and promoting harmful messages. Another girl followed up quickly in agreement, echoing a similar problem with her own younger sister.

“(My sister) is literally addicted to YouTube and we literally have to, like, wean her off of it and take her life off of it because she’s addicted to it, like that’s all she can do,” she said.

The students could all agree on two things: unrestricted internet access can be bad, and the COVID-19 pandemic made it worse.

“This problem really seems to be that (the internet) is completely unrestricted, but the solution, I feel like, isn’t trying to restrict it because I feel like everyone here knows, there’s no way to restrict it,” one student said. “I feel like the focus should really be more on like, adaptation rather than restriction — like figuring out apps that they can use that would actually put value into their life, like education or something … that could be a bigger focus rather than no iPad, because that’s never going to happen and that’s not going to be how it happens at all in the future.”

Passionate discussion was common among other groups, too. Students in another room were locked in debate over gun control.

Although many of the discussions covered topics you’d normally avoid at the dinner table, many students felt more comfortable sharing their views with strangers from across the school district.

They were able to respectfully disagree, showing adults there’s a pathway to civil conversation and compromise, said Ray Brewer, the Sun’s managing editor and a moderator at the event.

“The forum is a great concept: Give teens a voice to solve some of the world’s problems,” Brewer said. “I had some kids who identified as Democrats; some as Republicans. They debated issues and tried to find a common ground. If these are the world’s future leaders, we are in good shape.”

“I think it’s really important because, if anything, we’re learning how to express our opinion,” said Jaxon Coulson, a senior at Liberty. “I mean, (the moderator) is here to guide the conversation and discussions that we’re having, not to just lecture, so it’s very good that we’re being asked our opinions and we’re having pauses and we’re forced to share and to give up how we feel about things.”

Former U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she has been participating in the Sun Youth Forum for the past 25 years. She’s so passionate about the event that she annually awards a scholarship to one of the participants.

She called the forum “one of the singularly outstanding events in the school district,” bringing together bright minds in CCSD and allowing them to “meet each other and interact when they ordinarily wouldn’t have the opportunity.”

Her discussion group this year was “not only interesting and exciting” but also “very inspirational and very respectful,” despite the students’ sometimes vastly different opinions, Berkley said.

But for her, that’s the best part of being involved in these conversations.

“Grown-ups in this country don’t pay a lot of attention to foreign affairs, so it would be a leap to expect our students to, but they were very engaged and they did have very definite opinions on how we should be behaving and interacting with other countries across the planet,” Berkley said. “I think that the students really related to each other. There’s no doubt about that.”

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