Thoughts by Mike Masterson, Columnist for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Furor over fervor
A column by Mike Masterson of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
How about that overzealous Minnesota couple whose school assembly set the pot to boiling with their controversial program for Eureka Springs’ public school students?
This husband-and-wife team’s nonprofit organization, called You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, was billed as an alcohol/drug awareness assembly for 300 teen-agers. However, the recent three-hour session devolved into much more.
In their fervor to use fear and admonishment as tools to further a deeply personal agenda, the couple soon separated the male and female students for "virtue lessons." Then they proceeded to lecture the girls about how they can expect to get "black spots on their wedding dresses" someday should they even hold hands with a boy.
Bradlee Dean and his wife, Stephanie Joy, apparently warned the seventh- through twelfth-graders about any number of other societal "dangers," including rock ’n’ roll and gun control. They also sermonized to the female students that having any form of physical contact with a male would transform them into little more than "leftovers" for potential husbands.
One particularly offended 16-year-old was quoted afterward as saying that it felt to her and others that the program’s messages seemed more cultish in nature than any state-funded presentation intended to enhance awareness of alcohol and drug abuse.
Exercising admirable wisdom, school Superintendent Reck Wallis canceled the program that the couple had planned for the community’s elementary-aged students that same afternoon. Who knows what the little tots would have heard? School Board President Rusty Windle told our reporter Melinda Rogers that several parents later expressed their displeasure with the program’s content.
Whom do you think Bradlee, whose organization is said to receive $2,000-$2,500 per program, blamed for his group’s message that day? Why, "the liberals" in the Eureka Springs schools, who he suggested intentionally bent his and his wife’s words.
Bradlee did concede that the female students had been told that they could become "leftovers." But he contends the couple’s strident messages on a range of issues amounted to one big miscommunication (from which this organization could neither run nor hide). Obviously, the widespread dissatisfaction among students, parents and officials was fostered by those with minds far too open to march in lockstep with the couple’s messages.
"You’ve got a bunch of liberal kids listening to what they want to hear and that’s the bottom line," Bradlee rationalized to our reporter. Imagine that in a free America! A school crawling with "liberal" 13- to 18-year-olds with minds of their own! Yeetheegads, absolutely shocking! Prepare the public stocks and branding irons! Anyone seen that gallon of Old Weddingveil Black Spot Remover?
Whenever I hear tell of such inappropriate goings-on, for which public schools shell out thousands of dollars—the district wasn’t certain early this week exactly how much it had paid the couple—I begin to worry that our increasingly self-righteous society has dived willingly into the bottomless pit of utter madness.
This story was published Thursday, March 31, 2005
A column by Mike Masterson of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
How about that overzealous Minnesota couple whose school assembly set the pot to boiling with their controversial program for Eureka Springs’ public school students?
This husband-and-wife team’s nonprofit organization, called You Can Run But You Cannot Hide, was billed as an alcohol/drug awareness assembly for 300 teen-agers. However, the recent three-hour session devolved into much more.
In their fervor to use fear and admonishment as tools to further a deeply personal agenda, the couple soon separated the male and female students for "virtue lessons." Then they proceeded to lecture the girls about how they can expect to get "black spots on their wedding dresses" someday should they even hold hands with a boy.
Bradlee Dean and his wife, Stephanie Joy, apparently warned the seventh- through twelfth-graders about any number of other societal "dangers," including rock ’n’ roll and gun control. They also sermonized to the female students that having any form of physical contact with a male would transform them into little more than "leftovers" for potential husbands.
One particularly offended 16-year-old was quoted afterward as saying that it felt to her and others that the program’s messages seemed more cultish in nature than any state-funded presentation intended to enhance awareness of alcohol and drug abuse.
Exercising admirable wisdom, school Superintendent Reck Wallis canceled the program that the couple had planned for the community’s elementary-aged students that same afternoon. Who knows what the little tots would have heard? School Board President Rusty Windle told our reporter Melinda Rogers that several parents later expressed their displeasure with the program’s content.
Whom do you think Bradlee, whose organization is said to receive $2,000-$2,500 per program, blamed for his group’s message that day? Why, "the liberals" in the Eureka Springs schools, who he suggested intentionally bent his and his wife’s words.
Bradlee did concede that the female students had been told that they could become "leftovers." But he contends the couple’s strident messages on a range of issues amounted to one big miscommunication (from which this organization could neither run nor hide). Obviously, the widespread dissatisfaction among students, parents and officials was fostered by those with minds far too open to march in lockstep with the couple’s messages.
"You’ve got a bunch of liberal kids listening to what they want to hear and that’s the bottom line," Bradlee rationalized to our reporter. Imagine that in a free America! A school crawling with "liberal" 13- to 18-year-olds with minds of their own! Yeetheegads, absolutely shocking! Prepare the public stocks and branding irons! Anyone seen that gallon of Old Weddingveil Black Spot Remover?
Whenever I hear tell of such inappropriate goings-on, for which public schools shell out thousands of dollars—the district wasn’t certain early this week exactly how much it had paid the couple—I begin to worry that our increasingly self-righteous society has dived willingly into the bottomless pit of utter madness.
This story was published Thursday, March 31, 2005
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