So they didn’t come. The Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, famous for its members’ hateful demonstrations around the country, was supposed to be at my graduation last week to protest my presence.
It seems they were angry at a Colorado Voices column [“What if, just once, not all speech was sacred?” March 20] I wrote about them protesting a military funeral. I never specifically named them in the article, and really just examined the moral issues that sometimes come up when dealing with freedom of speech.
I personally didn’t think the piece attacked the Westboro Baptist Church, but I suppose it was enough for them to threaten to make the drive out to Ponderosa High School in Parker.
According to a story in The Post, the church stated it would picket my graduation “to tell the graduates the truth for once in their miserable, worthless lives.”
For an 18-year-old, this whole situation — i.e., trying to deal with causing a protest at your school’s graduation — is very difficult. I had to answer questions from friends, parents, teachers, even complete strangers. I had to give interviews to local news and radio stations, even the local newspapers. Overall, it was a pretty overwhelming situation.
Adding to the stress was the fact that I was living in Sassari, Sardinia, in Italy, when the article was written and published. It is a small city of about 150,000 people that is more than 5,000 miles from Colorado.
When the church threatened to protest my graduation, I was pretty disconnected from the whole thing. I found out about it from e-mails from friends and supporters, and Facebook. Not only did I get a bunch of new friend requests, but there also was an event page created, dedicated to “protesting the protesters.” It had people RSVP from all across Colorado and eventually had about 1,000 people planning to support Ponderosa during the graduation.
I did an interview with news radio 850-KOA; a Skype interview with Channel 7 News; and numerous interviews with high school newspapers as well.
I was kind of a minor celebrity — but at the same time no one really cared in Sassari. They can’t even speak English, much less read the paper. I was in a different world across the Atlantic, and didn’t really have a good sense of the magnitude of what was happening in Colorado.
I finally realized just how big the situation was when I returned to Colorado shortly before last week’s graduation. When I went to school to complete all of my senior paperwork, most of the administrators talked to me about the planned protest.
This was beyond weird, because the only other time in my entire high school career that I talked one-on-one with an administrator was sophomore year, when I had my cellphone taken away during class and had to get it back.
This was a big deal.
They told me about increased security by both the school and the Parker police department, and said an administrator would be following me around the ceremony. It was crazy. And it affected my home life as well, with friends and strangers calling to ask what I thought about it.
So after all of this build-up, and weeks of stressful anticipation, the church decided not to show up. Apparently they had “travel complications.”
Personally, I think they were afraid of the planned counter-protest, but I can’t say for sure. Of course, they might all have had flat tires that morning. Who knows?
In the end, I was ecstatic that the Westboro Baptist members didn’t show up. I know we would have had amazing support from everyone in Parker.
But I was fearful; I didn’t want something that I wrote to cast a shadow over my classmates’ memories of their high school graduation.
Last Thursday was an overcast, slightly chilly morning that will be remembered by the students, friends and families of Ponderosa. It was a normal, seamless graduation ceremony, without any protesting.
The day was ours — and that is what is important.
Ryan Wheeler (rwheeler35@) of Parker will attend Eckerd College in Florida in the fall.
