Parents call out school board member for anti-LGBTQ+ posts
Parents, teachers, and community members in Kentucky confronted a school board member who posted anti-LGBTQ+ comments to his private Facebook profile, causing him to flee the public meeting held on Monday, local NBC affiliate WFIE reports.
Keep up with the latest in + news and politics.
Donald Yarber has been a member of the Union Country Public Schools board in Morganfield since 2021. Earlier this month, he made anti-LGBTQ+ statements in since-deleted posts to Facebook.
'Keep letting those q***rs influence the minds of your children,' Yarber wrote in a now-deleted post, adding, 'They won't have any sickness except AIDS, mental instability, suicidal thoughts, jobs, wealth, self-respect or righteousness.'
Yarber, a mystery writer who studied journalism and creative writing in college, responded to his critics in another post to Facebook, saying his 'job is NOT to please people' and that his job does not require him to 'bend over and kiss any behinds because they do NOT like me or my beliefs.' He added that people can block or unfriend him if they don't like his personal beliefs.
Yarber faced a hostile audience at Monday night's school board meeting.
'I've dealt with bullies all my life, so Mr. Yarber, when you made those comments on Facebook, they roll right off me because I have developed a very tough skin,' Mark Lamb, an out dance teacher, told Yarber, adding, 'When I was a kid, I suffered messages like you said when you cavalierly mentioned suicide, and they made me not want to be alive,' he says. 'I believe that all of us need to do better. Even the bullies, even you, Mr. Yarber.'
Following Lamb's comments, Yarber rose from his chair and left the meeting, followed by angry parents calling him out.
The school board later released a formal statement to the media about Yarber and his Facebook posts.
'Union County Public Schools (UCPS) remains deeply committed to upholding the highest standards of professionalism, ethics, and respect for all,' the statement said. 'The views expressed on personal social media accounts by staff or board members are not representative of the official values or positions of our school district or Board of Education. Since board members are elected officials and not school district employees, UCPS does not have the legal authority to regulate their actions or suspend their terms.'
Yarber responded to his critics with another post to Facebook Tuesday: 'Once again the gay community has been allowed to say, 'It's OK to be Gay.' And I have not been allowed to say, 'No it's not.''
On his school board profile, Yarber says he 'desires to raise the level of education in Kentucky by reducing the number of state and federal tests and concentrating on teaching instead of testing' and that he is committed to 'limiting the Commonwealth's control of curriculum in Union County Schools, returning the education of schools to the parents and teachers.'
Yarber was reelected to the school board representing District 2 in Union County last November with over 55 percent of the vote.
The Advocate reached out to Mr. Yarber for comment on short notice and will update the story to include his response.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Dominion Post
2 hours ago
- Dominion Post
Governor: National Guard, police on standby for protests
Gov. Patrick Morrisey has announced that National Guard troops and State Police troopers have been directed to 'stand ready' at protests planned for Saturday. In a statement posted to Facebook on Friday afternoon, Morrisey addressed the number of 'No Kings' rallies that are set to take place nationwide — one of which is scheduled for Morgantown. 'I support the constitutional right to free speech and assembly, but West Virginia will uphold law and order,' Morrisey said. 'We will not tolerate looting, destruction, vandalism, or any violence toward law enforcement. 'I have directed the National Guard and State Police to stand ready to quell any actions that cross the line from peaceful protest to violent criminal behavior.' The rallies are being billed as the largest protests yet against President Donald Trump's actions since taking office for a second term. They will coincide with the military parade in Washington, D.C., to mark the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary. It is also Trump's 79th birthday. The No Kings Nationwide Day of Defiance will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at 243 High St., Morgantown.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
People Keep Refusing to Become Pete Hegseth's Top Aides
Chief of staff to the secretary of defense is usually a prestigious and sought-after job, but under Pete Hegseth, the White House is reportedly having trouble filling it. At least three people have turned down top Defense Department jobs—including chief of staff and several senior adviser roles—since Hegseth abruptly fired three of his top aides in April and accused them of leaking information to the press, NBC News reported. Hegseth's former chief of staff Joe Kasper was also pushed out of the Pentagon following what insiders described as a vicious 'turf war.' Even with Vice President JD Vance and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles taking an active interest in helping Hegseth recover from earlier missteps that raised questions about his leadership, the positions have remained vacant for more than six weeks, according to NBC. Wiles and Vance have looked for candidates inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, but Hegseth—a former Army National Guard officer turned Fox News weekend host—has reportedly rejected the White House's choices. The White House personnel office has also deemed some of the candidates insufficiently MAGA. In a statement to the Daily Beast, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, 'The anonymous sources cited in this article have no idea what they're talking about. Since November 5, 2024, the US military has seen the highest recruiting percentage of mission achieved in 30 years. There has never been more enthusiasm to serve under Secretary Hegseth's leadership at the DoD.' White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly also said in a statement that Hegseth had the White House's 'full support.' 'Thanks to Secretary Hegseth's leadership, military recruitment is up, terrorists are eliminated, and warfighters are prioritized,' she said. Hegseth, who remains largely isolated since firing his own inner circle, relies heavily on an aide named Ricky Buria, who left the military in April in hopes of replacing Hegseth's former chief of staff. The White House, however, refused to give Buria the green light because he's a Biden administration holdover who once called Vance's isolationist views 'wackamamie crazy.' The career Marine was particularly critical of the vice president's opposition to the administration's March airstrikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis, the New York Post reported. Those strikes were the subject of the now-infamous Signal group chat in which Hegseth shared war plans with The Atlantic's editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, who was accidentally added to the group by former National Security Adviser Mike Waltz. A Pentagon inspector general report is expected to conclude that Hegseth shared classified information on the chat, according to NBC. The defense secretary has also reportedly shared sensitive information about the Yemen operation in yet another Signal chat with his wife, his personal attorney, and his brother. Hegseth accused his fired aides Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll, and Darin Selnick of leaking the details of the second chat, a claim the three men deny. They've slammed their dismissals as 'unconscionable' and said no evidence was ever presented to them. Originally Hegseth and his personal attorney Tim Parlatore were responsible for overseeing the investigation into the fired aides, but in May, White House officials instructed the deputy defense secretary to handle the probe instead. The investigation has not revealed any evidence the men were leaking, leading administration officials to question if the firings had been premature, according to NBC. Carroll told SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly in late April that Hegseth spent at least half of his time investigating leaks and had created a culture of 'fear and toxicity.' Given the recruitment problems the White House is now having, word seems to have gotten around.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Land grab conspiracies spread alongside Canadian wildfires
"This isn't just wildfire policy -- it's a global land control strategy operating through 'sustainability' language," a June 1, 2025 Facebook post claims. The text claims the "Rio Law" is a global framework established to encourage sustainability that can be used to reclassify land in Canada for resource extraction and forbid residents from returning home after they are evacuated due to wildfires. The text spread across Facebook, Instagram and X partly echoing debunked theories about Agenda 21 and moves to push fire-displaced residents into "smart cities" where they will be subjected to strict technology surveillance or face restriction of movement. Simultaneously, users on Facebook and TikTok made additional claims about land grabs precipitated by wildfire evacuations invoking either controversy over Ontario province's Bill 5 or images of a possible pipeline route, which would supposedly cross Manitoba to reach Hudson's Bay. Conditions are primed for another massive wildfire season in Canada, as the over 3.6 million hectares (13.8 thousand square miles) of area burned so far in 2025 has already surpassed the year-to-date average for the past decade (archived here). More than 30,000 people have evacuated their homes in western Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba provinces, including remote Indigenous communities fleeing south. But as of June 12, some 7,000 evacuees in Saskatchewan province began returning home. Media report people will also soon be allowed to go back to communities Manitoba, but many areas remain under evacuation orders there and in neighboring Ontario. The fires hit as trade tensions with the United States have triggered the new federal government to open discussions about access to Canadian natural gas and coveted minerals. But the potential projects, including pipelines, raise concerns of environmental impact and Indigenous consent. Nevertheless, experts told AFP it was highly improbable for a wildfire to be used to intentionally target specific areas for resource exploitation. Mike Flannigan a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University (archived here) said a wildfire is defined by three factors: how it starts, what it can burn through, and the weather conditions around it. Many fires are started -- mostly unintentionally -- by humans, he said, but fuel and weather play too large of a role in where flames spread, making it nearly impossible to start a wildfire that could successfully target a premeditated location. Flannigan also pointed out that climate change creates conditions that suck up moisture from vegetation and generate stronger wind, a mix conducive to more unwieldy fires. "The drier the fuel, the easier it is for a fire to start," he told AFP on June 5. Wildland firefighters use burning techniques to impede the path of smaller and less intense fires and keep them away from populated areas (archived here), but Flannigan said once the blazes reach the tops of the trees -- also known as a crown fire (archived here) -- response becomes limited. "There's only two options then: one is evacuate, get out of the way until the weather changes or the fuels change, or do a burnout operation, which is where you get in front, where the wildfire is spreading, start a new fire that's fighting against it," he said. Hossein Bonakdari, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Ottawa (archived here), analyzed indicators such as leaf coverage and winter snow area to predict the probability of wildfire in certain parts of Canada. Even with these prediction tools, Bonakdari noted, a plethora of minute variables dictating a wildfire's spread exist, making it impossible to foresee whether it could reach a certain location. "I need a dataset of today to do the prediction for tomorrow," he said on June 6. While the claim that wildfires could be used to clear certain areas for resource extraction may be unsubstantiated, concerns about infringement on Indigenous treaty rights in relation to Ontario's Bill 5 exist (archived here). The legislation gives the province authority to declare "special economic zones" (archived here), overriding local laws for resource projects in a move that Indigenous leaders say will conflict with the government's treaty obligations. Ontario Premier Doug Ford plans, for example, on extracting minerals from the Ring of Fire deposit in the north of the province. Other Canadian premiers also recently floated the idea of a pipeline through Manitoba to end in Hudson's Bay, similar to what has been referenced in some land grab claims online. Using reverse image search, AFP traced the map in those posts to a 2023 blog proposing a path for pipelines (archived here). However, no formalized proposals for such a project could be found. The posts also misrepresent the 1992 Rio Declaration (archived here). The document produced at the United Nations' Earth Summit does not mention removing people from land. Rather, it lays out principles of protecting environmental and developmental systems, to which it says states should agree. AFP previously debunked claims about resident displacement to extract resources following hurricane evacuations. Read more of AFP's reporting on wildfire misinformation here.
