WILLIS SEEKS COMMUNITY SUPPORT IN COMBATING YOUTH DRUG ABUSE

If Renee Willis were any more altruistic, hope wouldn't spring eternal, it
would pole vault.

Exhorted from an early age to respect the teachings of the Episcopal
Church, the newly hired executive director of the Pitt County Coalition on
Substance Abuse is a walking, talking golden ruler.

"I was raised with the belief system that we are here to do what we can do
to make the world a kinder, gentler and better world for all its
inhabitants," said Willis, a 21-year Greenville resident born in Portland,
Maine, and raised in Winchester, Va.

Hired Jan. 1 to lead the 2-year-old council, Willis brings to her
half-time, $32,500-a-year job experience as a therapeutic educator with
Pitt County Schools and as an HIV counselor and tester for Pitt County
Mental Health, among other positions.

The learning curve in her new job has been steep, she admits. The coalition
was formed to help reduce tobacco, alcohol and other drug use among young
people in Pitt County.

"I was hired as half time, but right now, it is very full time," the
46-year-old said with a laugh.

Willis, who has a master's degree in health education from East Carolina
University, sees a drug-free community as the coalition's ultimate goal.
Along the way in this five-to-10-year scenario, she hopes to garner
continuing support from such diverse groups as local governments, law
enforcement, hospitals, schools, churches, parents and anyone else who
wants to help.

"Ultimately, we're talking about providing a culture and environment where
there are other options besides taking drugs where young people can be
successful," Willis said. "We need to think outside the box and offer
alternatives for success."

According to a Youth Risk Behavior Study administered to 2,014 Pitt County
middle school students in March 2003, sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders
favor alcohol over all other drugs. Next comes marijuana, then inhalants,
cocaine, chewing tobacco and steroid pills or shots.

Cigarette use is holding steady since past surveys.

Willis views what she calls middle school "huffing" - sniffing glue,
gasoline or cleaners - as one of the country's greatest drug concerns,
though the habit hasn't increased in Pitt County.

"It's very scary," Willis said. "The quick highs do a lot of damage to the
brain cells. You open up underneath your sink, and there are all these
huffable cleaning products."

As executive director, Willis hopes to bring together a variety of
resources to combat adolescent drug abuse in Pitt County. She also hopes to
help raise funds to augment the coalition's $100,000-a-year federal grant,
renewable for the next five years. She has the right stuff to do it all,
coalition pillar Dr. David Ames said.

"She knows the county and has a good sense of all the players," Ames, Pitt
County Mental Health medical director, said. "She is very intelligent and
sympathetic and will be good at getting groups to work together."

Willis, who has been married to Stephen Willis for 29 years and has two
daughters, unwinds from the stress and constant go of her job by, as she
calls it, "plowing away" on the golf course.

"I turn off the cell phone and get out, and it is a world of peace," she said.

Not unlike the world her mother raised her to believe in.