Hog Heaven: A Test of Faith - handling by school administrator of criticism resulting from science fair incident

School Administrator, Nov, 2000 by Thomas W. Harvey Jr.

Little criticism came from community members. A local politician purchased the pig posthumously to help the student pay his bills to the local feed store. The largest newspaper in the region, the Beaumont Enterprise, carried a very supportive editorial about the handling of the unfortunate event.

A Wayward Columnist

The passage of time seemed to be allowing the school district to handle the situation with little fanfare, Several months passed. Then came Ann Landers. Suddenly, Woodville, Texas, the Tyler County Fair and Tom Harvey were thrust again into the spotlight. Her republication of the original letter to the editor and subsequent commentary on the situation evoked hundreds of knee-jerk comments from her readers, some of whom compared the student, teacher and me to the likes of mass murderer Jeffery Dahmer, Adolph Hitler and other notoriously evil figures in history.

Our school received hundreds of phone calls and even more letters from nearly every state and many foreign countries. City leaders, county leaders, even Texas Gov. George W. Bush, received mountains of mail and calls concerning "the hog." The Tyler County Booster carried letters from people across the country for weeks.

Quite a few personal letters threatened bodily harm to the student, teachers, my family and me. Some contained graphic plans for revenge. My personal phone line received calls day and night. Eventually, I did not allow my children to answer the phone. Many were obscene or originating from emotionally disturbed individuals.

Ann Landers had made no effort to ask for our response before putting the critical letter in her internationally syndicated column. Obviously, this threw down the gauntlet. But I was adamant I would not respond unless addressed directly. I long have appreciated the fact that the news media has more ink than I have time and usually has the final say on all matters.

With great anxiety, I realized just how small the world was. I began to understand why people in California, New York, Oregon and Washington were furious about an incident in a rural Texas community. Mark Gerzon, author of A House Divided: Six Belief Systems Struggling for America's Soul and a presenter at last fall's joint conference of the Texas Association of School Boards/Texas Association of School Administrators, called this type of action "the Jerry Springer" form of democracy. This is where a citizen feels he or she is obligated to express heartfelt opinions with public blasts, which may or may not be true, through print, airwave and electronic transmission. With little regard to facts, these people promote idiosyncratic social causes or beliefs. Little matters, other than the promotion of the single "right" direction.

The county fair incident became a public flogging for those involved. Sadly, by the end of the school year, owing in part to undue harassment and public humiliation, the student dropped out of school and the school's agricultural science teachers left the district to teach elsewhere.