Sun Youth Forum sees Clark County’s best

Sixty one years and counting. This past Wednesday, close to 1,000 of Clark County’s best and brightest high school students met at the Las Vegas Convention Center for the 61st Las Vegas Sun Youth Forum. Having been to almost every one of the gatherings since 1956 (that one I was a very young visitor) I can confirm the fact that this one was one of the best.

Each year I hear the same thing from the adult moderators. “I have renewed hope in the future. ““It is so encouraging to listen to these young people who have their heads on straight and their gaze far into a future that they know will be theirs.” And “I am hopeful about tomorrow because I have met the leaders of that time today.”

Pick the platitude and it fits. These kids are the product of the Clark County School District and for all the negative stories that diminish the district in the eyes of the community, these young students — all of whom are planning to go to college — present an image far different. These students think, they feel and they understand that their futures are inextricably bound to the quality of their lessons learned and the quantity of their capacity to learn so much more.

The Youth Forum was created over six decades ago by my father, Hank Greenspun, and his assistant, Ruthe Deskin, because they believed that there was a time when the adults in the community needed to step back and listen to their kids. And the best way to allow that to happen was to create a place that was safe enough for the young people to gather together to exchange often diametrically opposed views in a way that taught them respect for the opinion of others and the benefit of finding consensus — often through compromise with those with whom they disagree.

The next thing to be done was to make sure the adult leadership