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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the famed Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

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to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

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the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey. Hello everyone. Welcome to a special edition of Sonoma County in the 90s. In the next half hour, we're gonna be talking to four young people from the high school surrounding the Santa Rosa area and we're gonna talk about what

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they think about a lot of different things and how they might reshape the world when it's turned over to. You have to stop to realize that these people are 16 or 17 years of age are old and their high school seniors and juniors and seniors. By

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the time they live the same length of time they've already lived, they will be in control of this country. They are the leaders of tomorrow. Today's students. Tomorrow's leaders, we're gonna try to find out what they think and and also why they place a lot of

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importance on education as a result of their education. They're going to buy the life they like to live basically on the program here. Now on the left of your screen is jennifer clay. Hi, jennifer person in high school. Tell us about you. I'm a senior in

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high school. I'm 18 years old and next year I'm going to U C L A wow and chris chris Rose High School. Tell us about you and I'm 17 years old. I'm a junior in high school and plan to go to Harvard next year. Great, Great.

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That's gonna be a tough as our next guest will tell us. That might be kind of a tough deal. All right. Um let's, we'll have time to talk with the two of you for about 14, 15 minutes and we're gonna be talking to reno gallery and

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matt Gelber and we're gonna find out what you all think, What are your aims and goals in life. Um basically, I, I would like to pursue a career in law and uh I really enjoy going into politics and I'm right now, I'm really um involved and

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active with drama at Ursuline and Newman and I'd like to continue with that just in community theater and and working in the community a lot. If you find your way into the profession, either acting or the theater or politics probably pretty exciting. How about you, young

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fella. Well, right now, my goal is to get into Harvard College of my choice. And then from there, I want to be an orthopedic surgeon. And that has been my career goal for many years now. And that's what I really want to do. That's terrific. That's

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terrific. That's great. We certainly need people like that. Um let's talk about the significant problems that you kids encounter you kids. I say I don't mean to mean uncomplimentary, you young people encountered significant problems in your lives. How do you deal with them? And what I

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mean by that is who gives you any help or do you see alternatives when you have distinct problems, jennifer? Let's start with you. I tend to try to see what I can do for myself before I try to get involved with other people, but I look

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to my friends, family and sometimes the teachers at school, um particular teachers, drama directors, whoever that I can feel comfortable with to help me with whatever the problem may be. And you kids to encounter a lot of real, real, real difficult problems when you're going through

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these years and trying to find your way. Uh not only through high school with decent scholastic average and all that, but to situate yourself in another college chris how about yourself? Well, I guess I try to look at the problem from all angles and just try

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to see what I can do about it myself and if I need help, my parents are always available to me, they've been really big support my family and my parents and I've got a lot of friends that also helped me and the teachers I have. They're

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really excellent teachers and they can provide the support I need and give me the help I need. You both mentioned that the fact that your teachers are a big help and I know we've been going back way back when my day in school, they were really

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kind of, they were role models in a sense of the word, they were the kind of people or many of them were that you could actually go to talk to and cared about, you are concerned about you. And I see that seems to still be true.

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At least what you're both saying. Um how about peer pressure in high school especially I was told last year by one of the young people that we talked with that he felt that that was more the case in junior high school and high school, but how

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does peer pressure rather affect you individually? I see a lot of it at school and just going to different parties and the things that go on, it does, I would agree with the person who was here last year, it does tend to be in the younger

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age when you get to a certain point, it just depends on who you are like junior senior in high school usually um it becomes less important to be popular and to um you know, have the, as would be said, the right people be your friends and

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um I see a lot of it, but I try not to let myself give into it. There are always situations that come up that usually, you know, sometimes they're hard to deal with and you might give into peer pressure, but I try not to because peer

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pressure has been responsible to some degree for some of our drug problems around the country. So we've heard at least these are reports to this effect. I was wondering how this sort of thing affected you. How about peer pressure in your life? Well, I agree with

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jennifer and that it does seem to be more more prevalent than the younger kids, but it is a really big issue in our school and a lot of kids think that just to be popular and to be in the in crowd that they've got to drink

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and do drugs and other things that they really don't want to do and they should just, if those are the people who are really gonna be their friends, they should just realize that they can be themselves and that I myself don't give in to peer pressure

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because I've always been taught that I should do what I want to do and I know what's good for me and it's not good for me and if someone wants to force me to do something that, you know, I don't want to do, then I just

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don't associate with that person, this is, this is great to hear, believe me, all the parents out there saying that's great to hear too to know though, that you are individuals that you are at this stage of the game thinking for yourselves as you get ready

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to go on to college and finish off your education. That you don't just fall in other words, they used to say, see who stands for nothing falls for anything. And that's, that's true. And that's certainly not the case with either of you. As far as I

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can see. Um, you know, we get most of the information we get outside of our immediate domain is through the media, the print media, the sound media, the video media. What is your impression of the media and media reporting today? I tend to think that sometimes

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the entertainment and the serious information parts can be obscured and people begin to believe that the entertainment is, is the serious side or that the, um, the bad things that are going on that need to be reported become the entertainment and that's, uh, really sorry thing

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to have happened. Um, the media can be a good, um, outlet and a way for us to find out what's going on in our country. But I think it can also obscure the, the, you know, good, obscure good morals and good judgment and make people believe

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that, um, what they see on television and in movies is real life. And it can hurt some people. And I think that we should also talk about whether it's biased or unbiased. The fact remains that the only way we really know what's going on outside of,

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let's say our county or state or whatever is to the media. I mean we either have to hear that by radio, read it in the newspaper and see it on television. Is it biased? Is it is it good reporting? What do you think? I tend to

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think that again, there's there's some things you can find good things about the media. There tends to be like the human interest stories. Sometimes they can play them up too much and it seems almost too dramatic. But I think a lot of times that those are

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really important that we need to hear about a lot of the good things that happen to people. Um, I think it's also important to keep because um, in our age right now, most people are geared towards television and if we can get the news and the

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important issues of our country and and what's going on in our own communities on the air that people can see it will help keep people informed chris give us your thoughts on that. Well, I think we do need the media to provide us with information so

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we can know what's going on in our country and otherwise we wouldn't be able to contribute to society. And I think that to say the media in general is bad or good is wrong and that some facets of it are good and some are bad and

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the reporting and like, like the some reporting is really um biased and they don't provide truth at all and that report is bad, they interfere with other people's lives and but there is a type of reporting that tells us the facts and what we need to

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know and I think that we do need media and there's no way we're gonna eliminate the bad media. So it's something we just got to live with. Let's stay with you for a minute here, I'm gonna jump down here. What kind of things do you do

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in school that helped prepare yourself for the future? What kind of things do you do in school and out of school that you feel are helping to prepare you for the future? Well in school, I try to prepare myself for college right now and so I'm

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taking academic courses and trying to challenge myself, so I'll be prepared when I get into wherever school I may end up and but I also realize that um I've got to be well rounded person and so I try to do other things such as I'm on

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the swim team and that just helps, that's helped me a lot in my life and I'm also in the band and play an instrument is very helpful. Yeah, it does, it really helps me a lot sometimes and I guess out of school, I just try to

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participate in the community activities and you know, I try to learn stuff about other people and I try to make it so that when I get out there on my own and I don't have my parents to protect me anymore that I'll be able to contribute

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to society. Uh, how do you do, how do you prepare yourself in school in school? Like chris, I've done a lot of academic courses, things that challenged me to be prepared for what awaits in college. Um, I've been involved in the drama department at our school

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and I've really enjoyed that. That's been one of the main focuses of what I've done in high school and it's really helped me come out of my shell and, and and helped me become a more rounded person. Um, I've also out of school, I played the

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piano and I've kept that up for about five or six years and for quite a while, about two years, I was a volunteer at memorial Hospital as an information desk volunteer. And that was really exciting. Yeah, that's, that was a very worthwhile thing to do because

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they desperately need people to help? Are you proud of your country today? In other words, I think what I mean by that is, do you think that your parents and your ancestors have done a pretty good job, fair job or a poor job running the country

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the 1st 200 years, we're still pretty young country. I think what's going on so far has been pretty good. There have definitely been many trials. Um, I think that the constitution is a solid document and I am proud that it's um has held up so long

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and I think it will continue to hold up. I think there are a lot of problems in our government. Too much bureaucracy, um, not enough seems to get done or the priorities where the money is spent sometimes is wouldn't be my first choice for where to

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spend it. But I think overall, um, we've done a very good job. Where would you spend more money? I would spend more money in education, especially education. It just, I think that people need the more, you know about your own country and about where you live

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and the people you're with, the better you can accept the things that are around you and the better the decisions that can be made for, you know, whatever may occur. So, you know, we can't have um, ignorant people running things and and deciding whether we should

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go to war or send people military action in all of that. I think education is definitely the most important. What are your thoughts about the country today and also, Well, our ancestors have done an excellent job creating this country from basically nothing. And we've become a

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major world power now, but you know, they've made a good base for us to run this government and to provide rights for the people and I think that after a while we've been going the same route for a while and we need a little bit of

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change and things are starting like jennifer said the bureaucracy and other things like that are starting to catch up with us and we've got really got to put more money and time and things like education and now with the problem with the environment, we've got to

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worry about a lot of things and I think that if we start making changes now, it won't be too late. Okay, now we've got a couple of moments before we break here. What do you think about the goals and the aims of most of your compatriots,

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young people of today, do you think their goals are solid? Do you think most of them will reach their goals? I think, yes, there are a lot of people that really have strong belief in what they want to do with their lives and if they're given

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the chance, they can definitely go through with what they want to. Sometimes there seems to be less faith in our generation from the older generations, less faith in the age group that we're in and sometimes that can make it difficult. But I think if, if your

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generation has faith in us, we can do whatever we want, it has ever been. Thus, always the next young generation is maligned and never will never amount to anything. Unfortunately, they seem to improve on their parents record every, every generation about what do you think about

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that? I think that young people today, going back to talking about the media with the television and the movies that our generation has been influenced to think that money is the ultimate goal and that that is a problem today and people today wants tangible security and

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that's good in a way to be able to be secure and to do things like that. But you also have to realize that you've got to like what you do, you gotta be fulfilled in other ways as well. And unless we start changing what we're doing,

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we might some people might get locked into doing stuff. Alright gang. We have to pause here for a break and then we're going to be talking to Matt and Delmar and Rena Galati. I want to thank you and I want you to pop over here in

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the studio and wait around for us and come back and join us right here at the end. Just wait just a minute and chris it's a pleasure talking to both of you. I as I say now I'll say it at the end of program. I think

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the country is in good hands. A few people are going to take it over just one moment and we will return first these messages for you from our station from the McGruff Files. The philadelphia story in certain parts of philadelphia things were, areas were run down

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crime and drugs were out of hand and honest folks felt like prisoners in their own homes. People decided to work with police to turn things around quickly, meetings, let the cleanup projects and folks working together soon the neighbors had their neighborhood back. That's what happens when

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people and police work together, write this down and I'll show you how you can help take a bite out of crime. I was so excited about going to the prom with Greg. He looked so cute and he had the nicest set of wheels at school. Everything

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was perfect until Greg started drinking at the time. I really didn't think anything of it. I mean what could go wrong? It was my junior prom is, Greg was driving me home that night, he lost control of the car. Greg died on the way to the

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hospital and now I'm the one with a nice set of wheels. A simple reminder from the professional photographers of the Redwood empire. Hey, welcome back to this special edition of Sonoma County in the 90s, we're talking to four young people who have attending high schools or

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are attending high schools in the central area. We're trying to find out what they think about the world in general and some of the things that they think period because as I said at the start of the program by the time they live, as long as

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they've already lived, they will be running our country every aspect of it. So these are your leaders, future leaders, Take a good look and listen to what they have to say about things. Um why don't I get you both to introduce yourself? Matt. Start off with

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you. My name is Matt Gelber. Um I'm a senior Cardinal Newman High School and next year I'll be attending stanford University. What have you decided what your major will be yet? I'd like to get a major in engineering and also one in economics I think great

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good combination arena you're santa rosa high school but tell us about you. Well my name's Arena Galati. I'm 16 years old and I'm a junior at santa rosa high school and I don't know where I'll be attending school two years from now but I'd like to

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go to U. C. L. A. Or stanford. That's great. That's been school school school. Okay If we said earlier we were talking to jennifer and chris these people have placed a high importance on education and as a result I feel like placing putting it this way

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they're buying into the life they want to live. Um I think that the first two people we talked to and the two are going to talk to right now. I have a great deal to say and you'll be entered to hear it. So let's get into

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it right away matt. Um what in your opinion are the most important issues facing young people in the world today in our country. Um the environment. First off, I think that's something that people are getting a lot more aware than they used to be and that

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should be our number one concern I think um if we put our world to the point where we can't live on it any more than makes politics and everything else seem real silly, um the things that the changes that are occurring in the soviet bloc in

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eastern europe, that's really, really exciting to a lot of people seeing, you know, what's happened to these people when they basically gain their freedom and find out that they're worth something. Um that's really exciting. Um I think a lot of the other issues like abortion and

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euthanasia, I don't think that people my age pay a whole lot of attention to them because they don't affect us that directly. Um I think if the right to an abortion, if that um seems like it's going to be infringed upon and I think that that

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might become a major issue, but until that happens, I don't see that become an issue. Well I think I agree with matt. I think all the issues he mentioned are important to people our age yet. I also tend to think that issues such as where will

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be 10 years from now are also very important right now. People our age are being asked what will you be doing 10 years from now, five years from now and to a lot of people that, that's a difficult question because you're making a decision now that

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will affect you greatly in the rest of your life. So I think one of the most important issues I feel is just what you're planning to do with your life. I think that the values and morals that you set now will be with you the rest

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of your life and what you decide now is critical to where you'll be. So I think that a lot of personal interest is really a big issue, but the subject you both make, the things you touch on are very important things Matthew mentioned are very important

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and I think the fact is that a decade from now, all the things that are really important right now might have painted a little bit in your minds and other things may have taken in place. We have enough problems for everybody in the county in the

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country I should say Matthew, would you like to see your community change and if so in what ways some parts of the community? I think the problem that cinema is starting to have now with gangs, I really hope that goes away. I don't think that's good.

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Um, I'd like to see the drinking problem, which I think there's a large drinking problem, I'd like to see that you know, taking care of somehow people get more responsible. Um, I think those are the two big things that I'd like to see, see what happens.

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What do you think your community should do? I think that we need to focus more on the homeless problem we have and also poverty in our own county. And also I'd like one change I'd really like to see is an attitude toward teenagers change. I feel

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that the society, the older society in our county looks down upon teenagers simply because of their age and doesn't always go beyond the outer cover. It's kind of like judging a book by its cover and not its content. And I kind of like to see an

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attitude change. I think that would help a lot of teenagers with self esteem and confidence also way, way, way back when someone once said me thinks the use of today is hopeless, They have no ambition, they show no quality, you know, they care for no one

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else. Uh, I despair of them forever and that was Socrates and it's been getting better and better ever since. I mean I think the young people of today uh, do my editorializing here. I think they are, are our greatest hope one great hope really that they

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will view these things that you and Matthew talked about as important and do your best to make some changes in them. What about peer pressure? Matthew, how does that affect you individually? Um, well I've given into peer pressure. I'm sure that will, again, I think everyone

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does um used to be more overt. I think as you start to grow up it gets less and less um surfaces, you know, kind of more as an under kind of thing. Um as an adult or a teenager say you go to a party and you

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don't really know very many people and everyone's drinking and you have a drink in your hand and all of a sudden you have something in common. So I think that if you have peer pressure it's not overt, it's trying to fit in with other things. I

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think that it affects me because it's there yet I tend not to give give into it as much as other people. I know, I do agree with chris and jen when they said that peer pressure is more dominant in the younger age, the junior high age

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as a peer counselor at the local junior high, a lot of the kids I deal with are in the stage where they're already questioning who they are and having added peer pressure and issues just clouds their sense of values and morals and they begin to question

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the peer pressure and sometimes they give into it very easily. But I think that as kids get older and they, they get into high school, I think that the prospect of giving into peer pressure is slightly smaller simply because I think people get to know who

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they are and what they believe in more in a stronger way so that they're not as easy to succumb into peer pressure. Let's stay with you for a minute for what about the role of friendship? What does that play? What role does that play in your

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life in my life? It plays a very large part of my life um in my family, my brothers, one of my closest friends and also I have a few very close friends at school that are there to support me. It's it's very comfortable and supportive to

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have a group of people that are behind you all the way and like you for whoever you are, no matter what you do. How about you? Friendship, friends or friends? That's what life's all about, is having friends and I feel that's the most important thing in

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my life, knowing that there's people that care about me that love me, you know that I can talk to have a good time with, that's that's why I'm here, that's what it's all about. Okay, what about the media? I'll start with Matthew, uh what about the

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media? We mentioned this to christian to jennifer, Do you think the media is good, bad and different? Is it biased? Does it do its job? What do you think of the media? The media does, its job as far as I think news and reporting does people

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complain a lot about um should we be going to say gary hart was a good example. Um, I think that's all right. Um, I think that the close scrutiny of the media is very important. Um, I think that on the negative side that our media is

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giving us a lot of the wrong values. I think a lot of people my age, um, think that sex and drugs, um, you know the way people look as opposed to who they are. I think that we're getting a lot of the wrong values for media.

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Um, and I think that a lot of people are spending too much time watching television when they could be out doing something active instead of passive. Um, it's difficult for me to say what I think of the media simply because I think there's a good and

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bad part of it and I don't like to generalize, but I think talking about the good parts, it does keep us informed. We know what's going on 2000 miles from us while it's happening yet. I also agree that it tends to cloud our values and our

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morals morals and um, it influences us a lot. And sometimes in the negative direction. The problem with our program here like this is we don't have enough time. We're down to about three minutes. Do you have any heroes? Um, yeah, I think my biggest hero right

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now is Stephen Hawking, the physicist and it's really amazing to me that somebody can overcome a handicap like that. Um, and be as brilliant as he is and contribute so much. His example is really incredible. I have a few heroes but one I can think of

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is off the top of my head is Mahatma Gandhi simply be well it's kind of obvious obvious why but I think that for someone to give up material possessions and self sacrifice yourself so easily for a cause that you believe in, that helps other people is

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one of the most admirable things I can think of. Alright we're down to about 90 seconds and I want to use a little of that time to complement the four of you. Matthew you're going to stanford right and you're going to be going to U. C.

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L. A. I know and you already have been accepted down there and you're going to go to Harvard too. Aren't you not gonna accept anything less than that? Ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to four young people, Quinn Mallory from santa rosa high School and chris

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SAPIEN from Central High School were talking with jennifer clay um Ursuline and Matthew Gelber matt Kalbar of Cardinal Newman. These four young people represent our future. So take a good look. I hope that you listen to what they have to say about the important issues of

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the day and the important things in all of our lives such as heroes and friendship what they would like to do with our community when the chance arises. I thank you all for for being our guest. I wish the two of you who are already en

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route to your four year schools successful career. I hope you'll come back and talk to us after a couple of years about how you find college for it and you'll have to come back from the east and you'll have to come from the south. Thank you

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all for real pleasure, jennifer chris pleasure. Good luck ladies and gentlemen, we've been talking to matt gelb are chris, SAPIEN, jennifer clay and marty. My name is Richmond programs in other county in the nineties. I'll be back with you next week with some members of the

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county government family or a very fascinating group like these four young people. Until then. Good luck, Good night, Good health to each and every one of you.