Lawsuit update and other family information!

MANY of you have emailed and asked what this lawsuit is all about. The choir teacher below is suing Kevin, the editor of the HS paper, the editor of this local paper and our superintendent for defamation of character. So here is one of the many articles that was printed in our local paper. I don't have a copy (on computer) of the article that was written for the HS newspaper. But this, in a nutshell, was what it was all about. But Lauren wrote an amazing article that was better than some professional ones I've read! So here you go: (if you don't care, skip past all the italics print)


The Churchill County School District is allowing publication of a student article in the Churchill County High School newspaper “The Flash” on Friday despite a grievance filed by the Churchill County Education Association requesting the article not be printed.

“I don't control speech, and I don't control press,” Superintendent Carolyn Ross said. “I'm not stopping it.”

Student Lauren Mac Lean, 17, wrote an article about parent advocates demanding the district investigate Honor Choir audition practices after parents discovered evidence that CCHS music teacher Kathy Archey failed to submit an unknown number of student audition tapes to Susan Benefield, region head of the Nevada Music Educators Association Honor/All State Choir program.

Parents Carl and Susan Robertson discovered their son Spencer's tape was never submitted when they attempted to appeal the rejection decision. Spencer was allowed to audition in person along with another student, Dallin Nelsen.

“She said there is no reason why these two boys should not be in the Honor Choir, and in fact, they both had a very good chance to make All State,” Carl said.

Susan said Benefield told them about the tapes at the audition, and there was reason to believe Archey has pulled students' tapes before.

“Ms. Benefield suspects this practice of withholding audition tapes has been going on for years,” Carl said. “She explained that every year when they have received audition tapes from Ms. Archey, there have always been missing numbers in the sequence,”

Benefield also told the Robertsons that Archey claimed Spencer and Carl were informed and agreed that Spencer needed more coaching. Susan said Archey has a right to pull tapes if she believes the student is not ready; however, Archey is supposed to inform those students.

“It was pretty devastating for him,” Susan said of her son. “For us as parents — why? We cannot understand it.”

Ross said the district has taken the appropriate personnel action by contract, but she could not comment on specific details.

According to the high school newspaper article, Archey declined to comment under the direction of the CCEA, and Margie Nuttall with the CCEA also said she could not comment on pending grievances.

Mac Lean said she worked with an adviser at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Reno, Nevada, a California adviser and Lords to ensure the article was ethical and reasonable for a school newspaper.

“I knew what could come from this,” Mac Lean said. “I wrote the article in a way that it wasn't attacking Kathy Archey ... It was really hard. There was so much on the line, people's jobs, people's reputations.”

Principal Kevin Lords said school newspapers are subject to certain censorship, but he worked with Mac Lean to ensure her article was fair.

“We followed all the policies and procedures to make sure that it was nothing that needed to be censored,” Lords said. “I apparently have people who disagree with me.”

Mac Lean said she has learned a lot about her first amendment rights and journalism from this experience.

“From this whole situation, I've learned my first amendment better than anyone else around me now,” Mac Lean said. “I don't think I've had to use my e-mail and cell phone as much as I have since this story ... Journalists find out about things. That's our job, even if people don't like that.”

Mac Lean said she may attempt to do a follow-up article on the investigation itself even though the district has not confirmed whether one was taking place.

“This young lady is a go-getter,” Lords said. “She really does have a career in journalism ahead of her. She really is very persistent.”



Note: Mike Nelson, the adviser, stepped aside when there was an apparent conflict of interest and deferred the article and situation to outside advisers and the school administration.

On to more happier things! :-) Ryan's neck is doing much better! He still has the neck brace on as it still hurts a little bit. So maybe next week we'll take it off. And yesterday it was a BEAUTIFUL 70 degrees in our back yard in the sun! So we changed the chicks and ducks bedding while letting them run aroudn in the yard. They just stayed right by the kids who were all sitting in the grass. They are getting pretty big! Especially QT the Duck. Feathers are starting to come in and they aren't so cute! Looking more like chickens!



I was also asked to do the 3rd year girls for Stake Young WOmen's Camp! YAY! I am REALLY excited! I had so much fun last year with them and I hope it goes well again this year! Kevin's parents are coming over to watch the kids this year for us, too, so Kevin can come up, too. They like someone from each Bishopric to come up. So we are very grateful to mom & dad for watching the kids so he can go up and experience camp!