Colene Miner, Diane Child, Marianne Stephens and Daoust remain steadfast in the effort to share their stories in what they describe as a city in denial. They again have blanketed Springville with fliers, letters to clergy and telephone calls urging participation.

"I am very frustrated because people don't want to understand," Miner said. "But I feel like if we touch one person, it was worth our time."

Her two daughters weren't heroin addicts, "just their boyfriends."

Miner has a 1997 photograph of 12 couples, including a daughter and her date, on high school prom night. Every boy in the picture, she said she found out later, was hooked on heroin. All of them are alive but struggle to this day.

"These were super neat kids," she said, adding they were involved in sports, student leadership and other activities.

Many Springville heroin users are described as good kids from mostly two-parent, church-going families. They do well in school. They play on the football team and in the band. By all outward appearances, they are typical teenagers.

Maybe that's why it is difficult for parents to recognize or accept signs of drug addiction.

"The biggest thing is not bringing awareness to the kids but to the parents because of the naivet� in the community," Child said. "Too many of these kids are falling."

She learned some shocking news the very night she attended the program for the first time several years ago: Her son told her he was a heroin addict.

Child expected son Courtney, 25, to die this year, perhaps even while in the county jail cell he occupied until a month ago.

Since finding out about her son's now eight-year-long addiction, Child has become a drug counselor at an Orem rehabilitation center. Heroin abuse, she said, can't be ignored.

"We just had too many deaths this year. We can't let that happen anymore."

Marianne Stephens' son Jon died in the spring. She and her husband, Kent, never saw his drug problem coming.

When Jon was 15, the police picked him and some friends up for underage drinking. Their embarrassed parents took them home expecting the teenagers had learned a lesson and would never sip alcohol again. Most did not. Jon switched to drugs. In his senior year, his parents found out he used heroin. They thought it was a one-time episode.

But like many parents, the Stephenses knew nothing about drug addiction and were at a loss when the dark reality hit them.

"We did not know what to do. We were so helpless. We were so blindsided by this," Marianne Stephens said.

John, she said, simply couldn't quit "even though he was killing himself."

The Stephenses learned much about heroin addiction over nearly 10 agonizing years. But they couldn't save their son. Only he could do that.

Jon Stephens, who aspired to be a doctor, died in April.

"Our whole family was just devastated by this," Stephens said. "But we're hanging on."

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If you go to meet:

What: Drug Awareness Night

Where: Springville High School, 1205 E. 900 South

When: Today, 7 p.m.

Who: Parents, drug counselor, recovering addict, police officer will talk

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E-MAIL: romboy@desnews.com