GALENA, Mo. -- The Stone County prosecuting attorney charged 16 people under the age of 21 with drinking alcohol at a party at which a Drury University freshman got alcohol poisoning and nearly died. The party was Saturday night on private property on Hidden Valley Road in far northwest Stone County and Sheriff Richard Hill believes the Kappa Alpha and Sigma Nu fraternities at Drury organized it.

Prosecuting Attorney Matt Selby said the people charged are all between 17 and 20 years of age. Selby doesn’t know whether they are all Drury students. One of the students charged on Friday is the freshman who got alcohol poisoning.

Drury officials and law enforcement officers found out about the party after the 18-year-old student from Camdenton was taken to a hospital in Springfield. Law officers say the student’s blood alcohol level was .394 percent, nearly five times the legal blood-alcohol limit for drivers of .08 percent. He’s now recovering at home.

The party was on Bid Day at Drury, when fraternities tell potential members whether their applications are accepted. The fraternities traditionally hold an official Bid Day party on the Drury quadrangle but none of them did that this year because law enforcement officers were going to be there to try to prevent underage drinking.

Alcohol possession by a minor (or being a visibly intoxicated minor, or being a minor with a blood-alcohol content of at least .02 percent)* is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in a county jail, up to a $1,000 fine, or a combination. Judges sometimes allow violators to wipe their records clean by doing community service and staying out of trouble for a period of time.

Selby hasn’t said if anyone will be charged with supplying the liquor to the underage drinkers. He said sheriff’s deputies are continuing their investigation. Hill said the property owner said the party's organizers told him no underage drinkers would be there.

Drury officials are also investigating what happened on Saturday night, and could levy sanctions against the students and/or the fraternities.

According to court records supplied by the Stone County associate circuit clerk, most or all of the underage drinkers were tested by a portable machine that measured their blood alcohol percentage after they blew into the machine. Here are the names of the charged students, their ages and what police say was their blood alcohol content:
-Roger Buzbee II, 19, .077 percent
-Justin Coleman, 20, .091 percent
-Christopher Coonce, 20, .054 percent
-Stephen Crighton, 18, .03 percent
-Meagan Harmon, 20, .111 percent
Nicole Harshman, 19, .02 percent
-Nathan Lipps, 18, .394 percent
-Georgiy Mandrik, 18, .059 percent
-Christopher Morgan, 20, at least .02 percent
-Jessica Overend, 19, at least .02 percent
-Courtney Reid, 18, .09 percent
-Tyler Reinsch, 19, .071 percent
-Thomas Shannahan, 20, .066 percent
-Samuel Snider, 20, at least .02 percent
-Keith Thomas, 18, .04 percent
-Timothy Winters, 29, .083 percent
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*Here's the language of the statute under which the underage drinkers are charged: 311.325. 1. Any person under the age of twenty-one years, who purchases or attempts to purchase, or has in his or her possession, any intoxicating liquor as defined in section 311.020 or who is visibly intoxicated as defined in section 577.001, RSMo, or has a detectable blood alcohol content of more than two-hundredths of one percent or more by weight of alcohol in such person's blood is guilty of a misdemeanor. For purposes of prosecution under this section or any other provision of this chapter involving an alleged illegal sale or transfer of intoxicating liquor to a person under twenty-one years of age, a manufacturer-sealed container describing that there is intoxicating liquor therein need not be opened or the contents therein tested to verify that there is intoxicating liquor in such container. The alleged violator may allege that there was not intoxicating liquor in such container, but the burden of proof of such allegation is on such person, as it shall be presumed that such a sealed container describing that there is intoxicating liquor therein contains intoxicating liquor.