"Last week’s sad death of Daffodil Princess Alexandria Cole will fall into the numbers that health experts use to alert us to risks. It will be swept into the statistics that governments use to allocate resources to the understanding and prevention of the things that kill us.

Those statistics have helped Western Washington Indian tribes build an extensive array of suicide-prevention programs.

It’s good, even essential, that they have those programs. In 2008, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured the suicide rate of Native American young people ages 15 to 24 as higher than any other age or ethnic group in the nation."

Get the Story:
Kathleen Merryman: Let's not stand for high rate of tribal youth suicide (The Tacoma News-Tribune 4/1)

Also Today:
Daffodil Royal Court Honors the Memory of Chief Leschi Princess During Parade (University Place Patch 4/15)

Related Stories:
Community mourning death of teen from Quinault Nation (4/12)