• Brandon Leonard •
• Originally published July 19, 2008 at 11:28 p.m., updated July 19, 2008 at 11:28 p.m.

A 15-year-old Victoria boy is pushing for state legislators to enact a law requiring children to have smoke detectors in their rooms.

But he is not waiting for his bill to be passed. He is doing something about it.

On Friday, Chris Wood handed a mother and father the first of 50 smoke detectors that will be distributed to new parents by Citizens Medical Center’s pediatrics department.

The boy’s father, Henry Wood, proposed the idea to Gilda Miller, head of nursing. She then sought and received approval from David Brown the hospital’s administrator.

Texas does not have a law saying children’s bedrooms must have smoke detectors. Only two states do, Wood said – Vermont and Maryland.

Earlier this week, Chris and hundreds of 4-H ambassadors from across the state gathered for the Texas 4-H Congress.

The four-day event, occurring every other year, divides 4-Hers into senate and council members, lobbyists, and a press corps.

Bills had to pass through committees and onto the floor in the same way they do in the state legislature.

Chris was a lobbyist, but his bill died when the senator sponsoring it was expelled before it could be passed.

When asked if he was interested in politics as a career, he said, “I don’t like politics that much.”

Many of the bills the youth presented were related to topics most likely to appear in state legislature this year, addressing issues such as health care, border security and gun laws.

Others were less likely to be adopted by legislators (such as a bill calling for high schoolers to have an unlimited amount of excused absences for good reasons).

Wood’s bill, known as “Sleeping Sound,” was developed from a program he and his sister, Kelley, started called Sound the Alarm. Sound the Alarm is a 4-H community service project to give low-income families smoke detectors to install in their children’s rooms.

The brother and sister got the idea for the cause during a father and son conversation after four children, two classmates and their siblings, died in a house fire Jan. 18, 2006.

“Chris and I were riding together, and he said, ‘I wish there was something that could be done to keep this from happening.’ And I said, There is,’” the father said of creating Sound the Alarm as a 4-H project.

Although Wood’s bill died in this week’s 4-H proceedings, he hopes state Rep. Geanie Morrison, R–District 30, who endorsed the bill before the 4-H Congress, will adopt it.

In the bill, the smoke detectors will be provided by the state.

For now, Chris Wood purchases them with money from donations.

Brandon L. Leonard is a reporter for the Advocate. Contact him at 361-574-1286 or bleonard@vicad.com.

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