Privileged White Politics And Walton County

Yet this is what schools are concerned about and what kids have...

Fidget spinners becoming a distraction in local classrooms

I would think a teacher on probation for Cocaine or a Principal flipping off the 331 Bridge and being Drunk or an elected official with a large criminal history with questionable history before that would be relevant.

What a distraction...it is.

Yet this is what schools are concerned about and what kids have...

Fidget spinners becoming a distraction in local classrooms

I would think a teacher on probation for Cocaine or a Principal flipping off the 331 Bridge and being Drunk or an elected official with a large criminal history with questionable history before that would be relevant.

What a distraction...it is.

The drunk principal is no longer a principal at Walton Academy.

He is now an art teacher in Paxton.

Papers haven't been allowed to report this.

P.S. And it's not because they don't have the info.

Posts like this one are why I take online fodder on any subject with a hefty dose of salt. I stood in the back of the media room almost turning blue, holding my breath, waiting to hear the shoe drop on which member you were alluding to during your speech. I have been the only press reporting regularly on the Walton district for probably at least a year or more. The daily used to attend and share a press table with me, but they fell away. Overall, I've been reporting on the district at least over five years. And this post is absolutely and unequivocally untrue for the only press that regularly covers this district, the Herald/Breeze. Not an email or a phone call or a letter has passed my desk from anyone on this subject. I would have loved a heads up on this. Nothing. Nor has the Illuminati contacted me, making tiny triangle signs which might mean if we are making up things"You are not allowed to report this."
This is just an absolute example of how one can not use social media or message boards to produce actual real news. Yet, this thread mentions anywhere up to 7 or 8 Fb pages on the female that is supposedly involved. Well, that many pages she must exist and everything all the pages say are true.The press has to meet certain standards that internet posters do not. The first one would be to cite and provide evidence to support these two opening statements. The second would be to locate and interview a real person. The third would be to separate the past issues that Eddins has had or what evidence exists to support new charges.And if I don't, my editor laughs at me and says try again. A letter to the editor is an opinion piece. An article had better damn well be written to be able to stand up to scrunity and stand alone in the factual evidence it puts forth.
I want to believe that you and most others are coming from the right place on threads and issues like these, but this post is absolutely untrue and makes me call everything involved questionable except the actual documents from 15 years ago. Why? Just why? Embellishment hurts your facts, It does not support them. I appreciated speaking with you tonight and I try to listen to our community as much as one woman reporting on education in our county can. But to sum it all up. This was bullshit.

Alicia Leonard
Assistant Editor
DeFunaik Herald /Beach Breeze
Alicia@defuniakherald.com
850-892-3232
(A copy of this post with my response has been sent to my Editor and Publisher)

Where is the article in the papers about this?

Please read my response above.

So are you now claiming that all of this stuff about multiple arrests, adultry, special favors, etc is now all B.S.?

Alicia, I did in fact discuss this with Bruce Collier at least 2 weeks ago. I did in fact send you what was said online and screenshots last night after the meeting.

I was told before the meeting that Deb Wheeler would in fact be at that meeting. She was a no show. WJHG was also given a portion of the documents you now possess and were told about the board meeting on the 16th. They were also a no show.

A reporter from the Daily News did in fact tell me that he could not get this past his editors.

By design I did not ask to be on the agenda because I believed that if I did, I would be prevented from speaking. I did try to reach out to Russell Hughes prior to my going before the board and we played telephone tag and I never did get up with him.

The actual documents from 15 years ago speak VOLUMES as to why this man should never have been elected to the school board. The stuff recently just goes to show that a leopard doesn't change his spots. His wife didn't lie, nor did his daughter in the screen shots I sent you.

Since it has become apparent to me we are going to attack the messenger and not the message that was delivered to the school board meeting, please allow me...

I'm not responsible for his wife's comments on his actions on Facebook or her calling him out and the page later being deleted. By his wife's own admission she knew what he was up to.

I'll grant you Alicia, the woman in question has 5 maybe 6 Facebook pages and I'll also grant you the woman is not playing with a full deck (drugs tend to make you crazy) but even the next door neighbors of this woman reported him being at her residence on Paul Rd. all the time. Still others the night all this transpired, also commented to his wife that they saw the 2 of them together in public loving all over each other.

Online fodder Alicia? Well his actions certainly gave absolute credibility to the rumors!

I was not the only person who spoke at that meeting last night. Dr. Don Riley was also there and reiterated most of what I said in the statement I read to the board.

Suzanne Harris also spoke and gave Bill Eddins Jr. the benefit of the doubt saying she had supported him in the elections, that she liked him and if all this was untrue she gave him ample opportunity to stand up and say so. He sat with his face buried and would not even make eye contact. After the meeting he FLED the building.

You were there when Mr. Hughes came to me, shook my hand and thanked me also assuring me that this would be taken care of. You were also there when Ms. Winegarner came to me and thanked me, telling me what I said took allot of courage and thanked me for coming forward. While you may not have heard what was said to me you assuredly know I was approached by both of them.

This morning when I spoke to you on the phone, you had the audacity to ask me how I decided who or why I singled out certain individuals. Most who know me will tell you that I HATE politics in Walton County and corrupt officials are assuredly a pet peeve of mine. I'm pretty indiscriminate when it comes to the latter.

If news sources in this county and even Okaloosa County were half as indiscriminate, we might actually get real news reported to us so that people could make informed decisions when they go to the polls and stop voting for the riffraff we continually re-cycle in this County!

As to your comment about being the only press to report School Board meetings let me give you a refresher course on SoWal school board meetings since I've been here long enough to know how that all went down. The South end raised holy hell back in the day because school board meetings were historically held in the North end of the County with allot of residents saying they were unable or unwilling to drive to NoWal for school board meetings. The School Board listened and agreed every other meeting would be held in Sowal. Historically school board meetings have always been POORLY attended last night being NO EXCEPTION. With the exception of the people I knew who attended that meeting and yourself, everyone else in the building was somehow employed by the school system. For years prior to your service Kevin Chilcutt (at the time with WZEP) covered your beat all by his lonesome and even he will tell you that back then the meetings were just as poorly attended both in North and South Walton.

As to investigative reporters, I didn't even know the Herald had an investigative reporter let alone someone who would go out and actually speak to the neighbors who knew Eddins Jr. was on Paul Rd. or any of the other sources I have cited. Now, since I have all this information where is the investigative reporter at and I'll be sure to give them ALL the information I have since you have already told me in no uncertain terms you're not interested!!

Have a good day Alicia!

Herald is good for wrapping fish.

Saying the papers are not allowed is a little different as in they are being censored, then not having a story. Papers? Can we see your papers? And why use their ink or paper when you have posted it here for free? And have the info. Anyone that reads this thread has the info and can pull the pics. Yes, I received your email late last night, and we talked this morning but I still cannot quite grasp what you want us to do with the same information and the screenshots. That's not an issue with being allowed to run a story. It's that there's no other story....yet.

As I said this morning there is no cohesiveness and focusing on his wife who is not a public figure is way out of line for a legitimate news organization as well as the general public. There are different laws governing publicity and right to privacy, I'd maybe do a little research on them before continuing to put hers and the supposed other lady's photo out there. Just because a photo.is on Fb does not make it public property I don't think. Some are watermarked so they can maintain ownership. Has either of you ever met the young woman in real life? Face to face? I've gone to very long lengths to certify a photo was the right person

You can get news past an editor when there's new movement. You cannot get something that is no more than republishing the same thing that was already published and public records. Believe me. If the daily believed there was something to report, his editor would have told him to run with it. Sometimes new is so slow for our area a daily could run a picture of a ham sandwich,

In fact, any of the outlets would run with it if they wanted from here. They were watching this thread the minute it went up. I actually see a lot of the opposite, Children of politicians are big business. No one is sitting on your story because they are protecting him. They're not running with it because it is part old news, it's part pieces of people's business and you can't sign releases for them and with the material I've seen it's potentially libelous for a real news organization. You can post them I guess until someone possibly gets upset and gets a lawyer. I don't know about private citizens.

I uploaded photos last night that I took but they will stay on disc until ready to build the story. Those pics belong to the paper, not me.

So are you now claiming that all of this stuff about multiple arrests, adultry, special favors, etc is now all B.S.?

That's a huge shark jump nice lady I met last night if you are her, if not, hello. Questionable, so far it's gossip unless you have documents or a witness except for the documents. You are solid there. Do we have documents on special favors, Besides two screenshots of a text or Fb post from a phone that is not in your possession nor property? What if it was a mock up and we ran it like it was real.

What really throws this story is in some ways is the way it is being sold. By people not directly involved. If the wife or the other lady rang up asking for an interview, they'd probably get it. It was the way it was worded. "Papers haven't been allowed to report on this" .It hasn't run because either they consider it libelous at least the personal relationship stuff. But it's not being held back because of privilege. The arrests were reported when they occurred, and didn't we have a thread here at some point on some of it a while back before elections. .I don't think him being a public figure omits her privacy. Just a guess. Meanwhile, back at the cabin, you will actually get press on your claims when I write up the school board meeting. But even I won't name the two private citizens. They've not broken a law nor attended a public meeting. People also get catfished using Fb profiles, screenshots, and such. I'm not a lawyer and I have no idea if I could, but if someone had my pic up without my permission or were trying to give it to media companies without a release, I'd get me some lawyers a lawyering. and the other party or I might be in the right, or not. But I think maybe the photos are the biggest deal. If they uploaded them and took them down and you made a copy that's sticky.
nO, i
Soooo final thoughts. All the news stations and channels you mentioned that passed on this are probably following this thread.

You were a part of a public meeting by choice last night and the pictures of you that I took while giving your speech look nice. You have a limited expectation of privacy in some spaces

But the photos you sent me from the Fb pages and such not yours,

People posting your photos without permission? It's illegal

Not so, according to attorney Smith. He said anytime you take someone else's photo from a social media page and repost without permission - even if you are in the picture - you are breaking the law.

"They are using the image when they do not have the permission to do so,” Smith said. “That is copyright infringement. "

Alicia, I did in fact discuss this with Bruce Collier at least 2 weeks ago. I did in fact send you what was said online and screenshots last night after the meeting.

I was told before the meeting that Deb Wheeler would in fact be at that meeting. She was a no show. WJHG was also given a portion of the documents you now possess and were told about the board meeting on the 16th. They were also a no show.

A reporter from the Daily News did in fact tell me that he could not get this past his editors.

By design I did not ask to be on the agenda because I believed that if I did, I would be prevented from speaking. I did try to reach out to Russell Hughes prior to my going before the board and we played telephone tag and I never did get up with him.

The actual documents from 15 years ago speak VOLUMES as to why this man should never have been elected to the school board. The stuff recently just goes to show that a leopard doesn't change his spots. His wife didn't lie, nor did his daughter in the screen shots I sent you.

O

Since it has become apparent to me we are going to attack the messenger and not the message that was delivered to the school board meeting, please allow me...

I'm not responsible for his wife's comments on his actions on Facebook or her calling him out and the page later being deleted. By his wife's own admission she knew what he was up to.

I'll grant you Alicia, the woman in question has 5 maybe 6 Facebook pages and I'll also grant you the woman is not playing with a full deck (drugs tend to make you crazy) but even the next door neighbors of this woman reported him being at her residence on Paul Rd. all the time. Still others the night all this transpired, also commented to his wife that they saw the 2 of them together in public loving all over each other.

Online fodder Alicia? Well his actions certainly gave absolute credibility to the rumors!

I was not the only person who spoke at that meeting last night. Dr. Don Riley was also there and reiterated most of what I said in the statement I read to the board.

Suzanne Harris also spoke and gave Bill Eddins Jr. the benefit of the doubt saying she had supported him in the elections, that she liked him and if all this was untrue she gave him ample opportunity to stand up and say so. He sat with his face buried and would not even make eye contact. After the meeting he FLED the building.

You were there when Mr. Hughes came to me, shook my hand and thanked me also assuring me that this would be taken care of. You were also there when Ms. Winegarner came to me and thanked me, telling me what I said took allot of courage and thanked me for coming forward. While you may not have heard what was said to me you assuredly know I was approached by both of them.

This morning when I spoke to you on the phone, you had the audacity to ask me how I decided who or why I singled out certain individuals. Most who know me will tell you that I HATE politics in Walton County and corrupt officials are assuredly a pet peeve of mine. I'm pretty indiscriminate when it comes to the latter.

If news sources in this county and even Okaloosa County were half as indiscriminate, we might actually get real news reported to us so that people could make informed decisions when they go to the polls and stop voting for the riffraff we continually re-cycle in this County!

As to your comment about being the only press to report School Board meetings let me give you a refresher course on SoWal school board meetings since I've been here long enough to know how that all went down. The South end raised holy hell back in the day because school board meetings were historically held in the North end of the County with allot of residents saying they were unable or unwilling to drive to NoWal for school board meetings. The School Board listened and agreed every other meeting would be held in Sowal. Historically school board meetings have always been POORLY attended last night being NO EXCEPTION. With the exception of the people I knew who attended that meeting and yourself, everyone else in the building was somehow employed by the school system. For years prior to your service Kevin Chilcutt (at the time with WZEP) covered your beat all by his lonesome and even he will tell you that back then the meetings were just as poorly attended both in North and South Walton.

As to investigative reporters, I didn't even know the Herald had an investigative reporter let alone someone who would go out and actually speak to the neighbors who knew Eddins Jr. was on Paul Rd. or any of the other sources I have cited. Now, since I have all this information where is the investigative reporter at and I'll be sure to give them ALL the information I have since you have already told me in no uncertain terms you're not interested!!

Have a good day Alicia!

View attachment 65738 View attachment 65739

Since it has become apparent to me we are going to attack the messenger and not the message that was delivered to the school board meeting, please allow me...

I'm not responsible for his wife's comments on his actions on Facebook or her calling him out and the page later being deleted. By his wife's own admission she knew what he was up to.

I'll grant you Alicia, the woman in question has 5 maybe 6 Facebook pages and I'll also grant you the woman is not playing with a full deck (drugs tend to make you crazy) but even the next door neighbors of this woman reported him being at her residence on Paul Rd. all the time. Still others the night all this transpired, also commented to his wife that they saw the 2 of them together in public loving all over each other.

Online fodder Alicia? Well his actions certainly gave absolute credibility to the rumors!

I was not the only person who spoke at that meeting last night. Dr. Don Riley was also there and reiterated most of what I said in the statement I read to the board.

Suzanne Harris also spoke and gave Bill Eddins Jr. the benefit of the doubt saying she had supported him in the elections, that she liked him and if all this was untrue she gave him ample opportunity to stand up and say so. He sat with his face buried and would not even make eye contact. After the meeting he FLED the building.

You were there when Mr. Hughes came to me, shook my hand and thanked me also assuring me that this would be taken care of. You were also there when Ms. Winegarner came to me and thanked me, telling me what I said took allot of courage and thanked me for coming forward. While you may not have heard what was said to me you assuredly know I was approached by both of them.

This morning when I spoke to you on the phone, you had the audacity to ask me how I decided who or why I singled out certain individuals. Most who know me will tell you that I HATE politics in Walton County and corrupt officials are assuredly a pet peeve of mine. I'm pretty indiscriminate when it comes to the latter.

If news sources in this county and even Okaloosa County were half as indiscriminate, we might actually get real news reported to us so that people could make informed decisions when they go to the polls and stop voting for the riffraff we continually re-cycle in this County!

As to your comment about being the only press to report School Board meetings let me give you a refresher course on SoWal school board meetings since I've been here long enough to know how that all went down. The South end raised holy hell back in the day because school board meetings were historically held in the North end of the County with allot of residents saying they were unable or unwilling to drive to NoWal for school board meetings. The School Board listened and agreed every other meeting would be held in Sowal. Historically school board meetings have always been POORLY attended last night being NO EXCEPTION. With the exception of the people I knew who attended that meeting and yourself, everyone else in the building was somehow employed by the school system. For years prior to your service Kevin Chilcutt (at the time with WZEP) covered your beat all by his lonesome and even he will tell you that back then the meetings were just as poorly attended both in North and South Walton.

As to investigative reporters, I didn't even know the Herald had an investigative reporter let alone someone who would go out and actually speak to the neighbors who knew Eddins Jr. was on Paul Rd. or any of the other sources I have cited. Now, since I have all this information where is the investigative reporter at and I'll be sure to give them ALL the information I have since you have already told me in no uncertain terms you're not interested!!

Have a good day Alicia!

View attachment 65738 View attachment 65739

And you have one as well. Great screen shot here.
But the photos you sent me from the Fb pages and such not yours,

People posting your photos without permission? It's illegal

Not so, according to attorney Smith. He said anytime you take someone else's photo from a social media page and repost without permission - even if you are in the picture - you are breaking the law.

"They are using the image when they do not have the permission to do so,” Smith said. “That is copyright infringement. "

What if Someone took a Picture off my Facebook Profile and put it on Theirs?
When you post a photograph on Facebook, the “Share” function implicitly gives permission to anyone who has access to the image to share it according to the settings of the site. If it’s a situation where somebody downloads your photo or takes a screen shot that include your photo, and then posts it to their profile or somewhere else online, that is likely of violation of your copyright rights.

My gosh, either you write the story or you don't...

Do your own research if you don't like what has been posted on this or any other site. The Herald Breeze would sure sell papers if someone did some research and did always write articles on who's apple pie is best or who's kid caught the big brim this week...

What if Someone took a Picture off my Facebook Profile and put it on Theirs?
When you post a photograph on Facebook, the “Share” function implicitly gives permission to anyone who has access to the image to share it according to the settings of the site. If it’s a situation where somebody downloads your photo or takes a screen shot that include your photo, and then posts it to their profile or somewhere else online, that is likely of violation of your copyright rights.

How funny that you should ask....when Facebook is notified that someone is impersonating someone else or using images that are not theirs, Facebook doesn't do anything about it.

Yes, the share function was working the night all this was posted. Once the account was deleted so to went the images and the conversation. I saved those images to my machine because I knew the page was going to come down and by 7 am the next morning they were gone!

That is also why the images don't appear here any longer because they were linked to the original page...page gone...images gone...POOF!

I think you might have hit the trifecta. Photos,
What Is Invasion of Privacy?
Publication of Private Facts | Digital Media Law Project

My gosh, either you write the story or you don't...

My gosh, either you write the story or you don't...

Do your own research if you don't like what has been posted on this or any other site. The Herald Breeze would sure sell papers if someone did some research and did always write articles on who's apple pie is best or who's kid caught the big brim this week...

It's not research when you steal a person photos from Fb and post them on other sites. I spoke with this lady this morning and tried to do whatever I could for her. And no, no story on this interaction. Apple pie sound great and we do have a new outdoors and fishing sec

How funny that you should ask....when Facebook is notified that someone is impersonating someone else or using images that are not theirs, Facebook doesn't do anything about it.

Yes, the share function was working the night all this was posted. Once the account was deleted so to went the images and the conversation. I saved those images to my machine because I knew the page was going to come down and by 7 am the next morning they were gone!

That is also why the images don't appear here any longer because they were linked to the original page...page gone...images gone...POOF!

That's what screen shots are for. They don't poof!

I think you might have hit the trifecta. Photos,
What Is Invasion of Privacy?
Publication of Private Facts | Digital Media Law Project



That's what screen shots are for. They don't poof!

And that's why I have the screen shots!

People posting your photos without permission? It's illegal

FOX News? Really?

My gosh, either you write the story or you don't...

Do your own research if you don't like what has been posted on this or any other site. The Herald Breeze would sure sell papers if someone did some research and did always write articles on who's apple pie is best or who's kid caught the big brim this week...

Oh shes going to write the story have no fear of that and her slant will be she thinks this is a witch hunt and 15 year old news because she is not an investigative reporter and nobody contacted her about any of this.

--------------------------------

Just as she has sung the silly Mayor of Defuniak Springs and Diane Pickett praises for trying to keep this City in the 18th century and asking the mayor for his side of the story and his throwing a temper tantrum for something he agreed to in a public meeting and later reneged on, leaving me wondering if she and I actually attended the same meeting and she wasn't the reporter sitting directly in front of me. Her story and the mayor in this weeks edition of the paper are so far from the truth of what transpired at the meeting I was at, I thought I was watching a twilight zone episode.

Shoddy reporting helps keep this City backward and unable to move forward. Thanks for your participation in that Alicia....great job. KUDOS!

Oh and BTW, read Diane Picketts's letter to the editor and her VISION for Defuniak.

Whatever happens keep life all about the historic district and downtown Defuniak and remember folks Ms. Pickett want's things just the way they were 60 some odd years ago.

Read the back page also and how the Main Street Project (to revitalize Defuniak) might well cost the taxpayers 30 thousand dollars if the Mayor and Pickett have their way.

I got a call at work yesterday telling me someone had followed Bill to her home and had dates and times he was there. I am afraid this is going to explode if Bill does not make a statement of some kind. Someone must have cared enough to hire a private dectitive long before this all broke.

Oh shes going to write the story have no fear of that and her slant will be she thinks this is a witch hunt and 15 year old news because she is not an investigative reporter and nobody contacted her about any of this.

--------------------------------

Just as she has sung the silly Mayor of Defuniak Springs and Diane Pickett praises for trying to keep this City in the 18th century and asking the mayor for his side of the story and his throwing a temper tantrum for something he agreed to in a public meeting and later reneged on, leaving me wondering if she and I actually attended the same meeting and she wasn't the reporter sitting directly in front of me. Her story and the mayor in this weeks edition of the paper are so far from the truth of what transpired at the meeting I was at, I thought I was watching a twilight zone episode.

Shoddy reporting helps keep this City backward and unable to move forward. Thanks for your participation in that Alicia....great job. KUDOS!

Oh and BTW, read Diane Picketts's letter to the editor and her VISION for Defuniak.

Whatever happens keep life all about the historic district and downtown Defuniak and remember folks Ms. Pickett want's things just the way they were 60 some odd years ago.

Read the back page also and how the Main Street Project (to revitalize Defuniak) might well cost the taxpayers 30 thousand dollars if the Mayor and Pickett have their way.

Isn't a City Employee that works in the mayor / front office the son or daughter of the owner of The Herald Newspaper?

Isn't a City Employee that works in the mayor / front office the son or daughter of the owner of The Herald Newspaper?

Honestly @John G I have no idea. Unlike the Mayor, I do not involve myself in the day to day operations of City Government. I just recently started attending City Council meetings again and the reason I got involved were because of some prehistoric, antiquated ordinances involving garbage pick up. My father is 84 years old (a senior citizen), on oxygen 24/7 and has a host of other medical issues that prevent him from being able to get the roll out to the curb. I have my own health issues and struggle with it as well. The way the code was written was much simpler than the hurdles the sanitation dept. was trying erect which included a notarized statement from a physician (a charge for an office visit, then a charge to a notary) and a City employee making contact to verify/document that there was not an ABLE BODIED person in the home and that all the aforementioned is true. The way the code is/was written states just the fact he is 84 years old and a 25 year resident of DFS along with the handicapped stickers on both his vehicles, he qualified for them to actually have to walk to the side of the house and haul the roll out to the truck. (It was all quite ridiculous!) I won't even mention that since then, they have hired a new sanitation worker and did not give her the list of folks who qualify for this service, our garbage pick up these days is HIT OR MISS! A friend living in the historic district of the same age, and similar disabilities is having the same problem.

The point here is, that if you give people the tools they need to do their jobs (in this case a list of house side pick-ups) and send them on their way, they can do the job but when the City is hampered by a Mayor with his own agenda and city employees time is CONSUMED with petty, immature, childish behavior that WARRANTED FRONT PAGE NEWS (and a healthy does of WHINE by the Mayor in a continued "on page whatever" RANT) and a letter from the City Attorney with a directive that his office would be moved, its IMPOSSIBLE to FOCUS on the fact that the City NEEDS a City Manager, a Finance Director, a utility billing clerk, and police officers that we are losing at an alarming rate because the Chief is a petty tyrant!

I won't mention the money the City is losing in state funding because audits HAVE NOT been completed from years ago. I will suggest however that Mac Carpenter's (ex-council member) man for the job was about an inept as a bull in a china shop and Mac Carpenter's comment that the letter from the auditor "meant nothing, that all Cities receive them" was about one of the most ignorant remarks he ever made as a sitting council member. He was voted out for MORE THAN ONE reason.

Then you have Diane Pickett who has her nose so far up the backside of the Mayor she can smell breakfast, who wants life in Defuniak to continue as it did in the early early 1900's with roller derby's on main street, box car races replete with picnic lunches to "revitalize" downtown Defuniak and $75K of taxpayer money, $30K of which they want to see the County pay in order to "get er done" while the rich owners of the buildings sit back and watch it all happen.

And I won't mention how some of the Mayor's "circle" has gone about town begging people to show up at the next Council meeting Monday to tell the Council about the Mayor's EX-office space, and how that space has been the Mayor's for 50 years or better. It doesn't matter to them that this City is trying to grow and the needs of City employees to have the ability to meet the demands of their job are changing. For them its all about appearances and making an honorary position look like an EMPEROR (with NO clothes) is representing the City, who loves this it so much, he is doing everything in his VERY LIMITED power to keep things just the way they have always been!

Isn't a City Employee that works in the mayor / front office the son or daughter of the owner of The Herald Newspaper?

I did actually confirm that this afternoon, so yes.

I did actually confirm that this afternoon, so yes.

OK, I'd thought that was the case.

Wonder if that has anything to do with way that paper reports on things?

Since this stream is basically about Walton Schools...

Was there actually a teacher that "couldn't wake up" a young kid and left him / her locked in a classroom to miss graduation?

You can't make this up, is it true?

Since this stream is basically about Walton Schools...

Was there actually a teacher that "couldn't wake up" a young kid and left him / her locked in a classroom to miss graduation?

You can't make this up, is it true?

www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20170523/report-sleeping-child-locked-in-classroom-while-fellow-students-graduated#vf-widget-art-4FDE5991-DB63-063E-E053-0100007F06ED-pub2884

Six-year-old boy was supposed to be on stage during his kindergarten graduation. Instead, he was allegedly left unattended sleeping under his teacher’s desk.

By Heather Osbourne | 315-4440 | @heatheronwfdn | hosbourne@nwfdailynews.com
DEFUNIAK SPRINGS — An investigation is underway regarding a 6-year-old boy who was left sleeping inside a classroom alone Friday while the rest of his classmates graduated.

Maude Saunders Elementary School student Corey Jackson was supposed to be on stage during his kindergarten graduation. But when his mother, Kari Owens, and his adult cousin, Akela Whitehead, got to the graduation ceremony, they couldn’t find Corey. The two women started to panic, they said.

“We went up to his teacher and asked where he was,” Whitehead said. “She told us that she had left him inside of the classroom and locked the door because she couldn’t wake him up.”

“She just kept smiling at us and told me it was OK, he was only in there for about 45 minutes to an hour,” Owens added.

Assistant Principal Wyndy Crozier said Owens’ allegations were reported to the Department of Children and Family Services (DCF) and the Walton County Sheriff’s Office on Friday. Crozier said the teacher in question refrained from telling her anything about the incident.

“Nothing is verified yet,” Crozier said. “I’m waiting for the DCF investigation. The child had been having episodes of sleeping in the classroom. The teacher had been talking to the mom about getting to the bottom of it. He’s very difficult to wake.”

Corey’s mom said they were instructed by the teacher to wait a moment before she walked with them to retrieve her son. Instead, they rushed to the classroom and pulled on the door, which was unlocked.

“I started screaming for my youngin and he didn’t answer me,” Owens said. “We turned around to try to find the teacher. She walked in, turned the light on and started talking to other parents who walked into the classroom. I screamed, asking where Corey was. She pointed under her desk.”

Maude Saunders is still allowing the teacher of 19 years to continue working with students while under investigation because the “child was unharmed,” Crozier said. The school has not checked any hallway cameras to confirm or deny Owens’ claims.

“If it did happen, it’s not our protocol to leave a child unattended,” Crozier said. “We would have someone with them, like an aide or a nurse. We would not have left him alone.

“This is something that I can’t support if the person did do this,” Crozier continued. “If the outcome of the investigation shows this happened, then we’ll decide the disciplinary action. Safety is No. 1 to us. It’s above everything else.”

Walton County School Board Superintendent Russell Hughes did not comment on the incident, referring all questions to Crozier, according to Hughes’ receptionist.

Owens did not allow Corey to attend school Monday.

“This is not going to be swept under the rug,” Whitehead said. “The child could have been dead in the classroom. What if he had a serious medical condition? What if there was a fire? Why was he under the desk? Children should be accounted for at all times.”