All women know is "laying on their back with their legs in the air splayed." At least,
according to Perry County District School Board member Mark Gremaud. Those are the words he chose when addressing his colleague Kathy Carron during a closed meeting. "Kathy," he said, "You are just a woman, the only thing you know is laying [sic] on your back with your legs in the air splayed."
According to Nancy Voelker, the President of the board, "The comments for which Mr. Gremaud was censured were unprovoked. This is a fact uncontested by six members of the board. The discussion was not about teachers, students, farmers, or any other conjecture you may see on social media. We were discussing board procedures and board behaviors. Mrs. Carron’s statement was not directed to Mr. Gremaud, but was rather directed to the entire board. Mrs. Carron made a reasonable comment in a reasonable manner, before Mr. Gremaud’s unprovoked verbal attack."
The comments were met with outrage, thank goodness, and a special meeting of the school board for the small Missouri town had to be called to deal with Gremaud's comments. Amazingly, the council voted 4-3 to censure Gremaud, and also requested that he resign from his position. To be clear, what's amazing about that to me is not that they censured him, but that three people disagreed with the decision.
Fellow board member Jeff Weilbrecht was one such dissenter. He stood up during the meeting to voice support for Gremaud, saying, "I’m not saying Mark Gremaud is the perfect board member, I’m not saying I’m one either. I do ask that the rest of us stop and put our petty differences aside once and act like adults and accept that we have differences.” It takes a pretty hefty lack of awareness to use "we need to act like adults" in defense of someone who did the exact opposite.
For now, Gremaud can remain on the board, however he cannot vote. It is unclear yet whether he will resign.
Watch the news story below.
KFVS12 News
