Kerry Freeman isn’t one to throw stones.

She’s just a mother, hurting and full of hindsight, looking for answers to the growing list of dead local teenagers, a list that includes her 18-year-old daughter, Christina.

She’s tired of sappy memorials, excuses, condolences and the heads of older folks shaking in bewilderment, talking about “kids these days.”

“Let’s be real about it,” Freeman said. “This is about respect and consequences.”

Christina was killed after climbing into the car with a 17-year-old who crashed in 2006 at the Interstate 44 interchange with Range Line Road. Christina was ejected.

The driver, Cory J. Simmons, took a breath test that indicated he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.094 percent, according to court records.

In court, Simmons admitted consuming seven to eight drinks of vodka and orange juice the night in question. He also acknowledged having smoked marijuana.

Freeman is angry and ready to take a real look at the issue. She has moved past reacting and can say her daughter — whose post-mortem toxicology report indicated she had been drinking too — is not only a victim, but evidence that good kids make bad decisions and sometimes do not live to regret them.

Call to action

A national “Call to Action” issued last year by the U.S. surgeon general termed underage drinking “a major societal problem” that requires all segments of a community to solve.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 7,460 youths between the ages of 15 and 20 were killed in accidents in 2005. More than 28 percent of those drivers were drinking.

That same surgeon general’s report, as well as local law enforcement and victims’ families, notes the culture remains ambivalent about what some still consider a rite of passage and a $116 billion industry that is ubiquitous in American life. The same studies say underage drinkers get alcohol from older family members, friends and acquaintances.

Newton County Sheriff Ken Copeland said his department gets mixed signals from the public about enforcement. Some parents call to thank officers but others call up to complain when their children are cited for being in possession of alcohol.

And while this “rite of passage” goes on, so does the list.

Cherish Vaughn, 16, Joplin, got in a car with Trevor Nease, 17, about midnight July 25, 2007, after he had been drinking, according to Newton County court records. Nease tried to pass another vehicle on the shoulder while speeding down Missouri Highway 43 in Newton County, lost control and rolled the vehicle. Vaughn did not survive.