I dealt with the aftermath

I spent 15 years as the SMS principal. I retired proud of what we built. Our students felt safe and parents trusted us to look after their kids.

One day after the school ended, Scott Herndon’s group positioned themselves outside our school with large signs displaying dismembered fetal images. I spent many hours on the phone with parents who had called because their 12- and 13-year-old children had walked past those signs on the way out of school and were frightened and confused. I had no good answer for them. I had not chosen this for our students. 

I contacted the appropriate people about the displays. The response from Herndon’s side was not concerned. It was a reminder that they had legal rights and intended to use them on the public sidewalks leading from our school.

I want to be clear: I am not making a political argument about abortion. I am telling you what I witnessed as a school administrator: a man deliberately chose the entrance of a middle school as the location for graphic imagery designed, by his own admission, to elicit reactions. He called the disruption necessary. 

Teachers and parents spend countless hours working on an age-appropriate education. We don’t want our children exposed to graphic pictures of things that they don’t understand. Most parents want childhood to be an age of innocence. Many people who move here want that also. Growing up in Sandpoint, I had that opportunity. I still want that for my young grandsons.

That man is now running for the Idaho Senate for the fourth time. He is asking District 1 to trust his judgment and his character.

I watched Herndon exercise both his judgment and his character outside my school. I am voting for Jim Woodward on May 19. He is truly a person of character and decency. 

KIM KEATON

Dover