ETHETE - The sun shone hot on the Wind River Indian Reservation, as tribal members and other locals assembled in a relatively cool gymnasium here to promote remedies for what many see as a growing youth crisis.

Three teenage girls were found dead in the Beaver Creek housing development two weeks ago - all three members of the Northern Arapaho Tribe.

In response to the tragedy, tribal elders invited community members Tuesday to attend an informal gathering at Blue Sky Hall, with the aim of promoting both healing and healthy debate about how the tribe can best react to the incident.

More than 160 people showed up for the assembly, and they were encouraged by the Council of Elders to participate in public deliberations regarding ways the tribe can ensure that its children grow up healthy and proud, and refrain from dangerous activities, such as drug and alcohol use.

Elders expressed worries, before and during the meeting, that alcohol and drug use is escalating among children and young adults on the reservation, in part because of the absence of alternative, constructive activities for them.

Although authorities have yet to determine the official cause of the girls' deaths, several tribal leaders were operating under the assumption Tuesday that alcohol consumption, and possibly drug use, led to the tragedy.

"They were able to drink alcohol. They were able to get drugs. As a result, they lost their lives," said Jerry Redman, chairman of the Northern Arapaho Council of Elders. "We can't afford to lose more children to alcohol and drugs."

Jonathan Barela, spokesman for the tribe, said nobody has yet received any official notification from the FBI or the Fremont County coroner's office, but he acknowledged the prevailing assumption is along the lines of what Redman described.

Coroner Ed McAuslan, who was in attendance, said officials will not know the cause until they receive the final toxicology reports, which won't be available until the first or second week of July.

Crawford White, 68, co-chairman of the Northern Arapaho Council of Elders, said the loss of traditional Arapaho culture has caused tribal youths to face an identity crisis, and as a result many are engaging in risky and damaging behavior, "mainly drugs and alcohol," he said.

The children must learn, as their ancestors did, to respect themselves and to respect their traditions, he said.

"We need to try to bring back our language. Try to bring back our respect, our cultural ways," White said. "It's a real critical time right now."

Harvey Spoonhunter, co-chairman of the Northern Arapaho Business Council, said he believed one possible way to ensure that Arapaho children grow up healthy and proud would be to reinstitute the tribe's traditional, structured, age-grade societies. In these societies children begin learning the tribal way of life when they are small, and are required to graduate from one grade to another as they age.

At the start of Tuesday's meeting, Council of Elders Director Ryan Wilson said, "We're hoping that some dynamic, long-term, institutional changes are going to take place."

He insisted that it was a good day for the tribe, because "We've come together to say, 'Enough is enough.' The sense of urgency couldn't be higher," he said.

Wilson said American Indian children are born as shining lights, but their experiences over the years have "a debilitating effect" for many of them, and their lights are eventually darkened by "clouds of inferiority."

He suggested the tribe get serious about creating structured, daily organized activities for its children, where they can express themselves through art, music and physical activities, including hunting and fishing.

Tribal leaders said they have already begun the process of resurrecting the Boys and Girls Club on the reservation for Arapaho children, and will work toward such things as improving the court system, creating a more effective law enforcement presence, enhancing child protective services, creating more youth employment opportunities and instilling "a cadre" of children from each new generation with a strong sense of identity through immersion in the Arapaho language.

"We're not pointing fingers at anybody," Wilson said. "We're all standing together in brutal solidarity. We're going to put our lives between our children and harm."

The Boys and Girls Club, which has been closed for almost three years, once served more than 1,000 Arapaho children annually, with locations in both Arapahoe and Ethete, Barela said.

"We're working diligently to get it up and running again," Wilson said.

A new, private, Arapaho immersion school will open its doors this August for its first year of kindergarten and first grade instruction, Wilson said.

Reporter Chris Merrill can be reached at chris.merrill@trib.com or at (307) 267-6722.