Lyndonville AD’s supporters should keep pushing for answers

Editor:

Over 100 people attended the Lyndonville Central School Board meeting three days before the Fourth of July. The meeting had to be moved from the High School Library to the school’s auditorium to accommodate what appeared to be a restive group of attendees.

Perhaps 20 people signed up early and spoke attesting to the fine job Lee Dillenbeck has done in 18 years as athletic director. They included Wes Bradley, Mark Hughes, parents, teachers, a school custodian, former students, and athletes influenced by Dillenbeck’s leadership.

After people spoke, the board went into executive session. Upon their return, Superintendent Jason Smith again recommended that Dillenbeck be retained as A.D. Smith’s recommendation was—again—rejected.

Now that impassioned pleas have fallen on mostly tone-deaf ears, what happens?

What does the history one former student who spoke and is studying to become a teacher—in part because Dillenbeck inspired him—tell us? What would James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriet Tubman, and numerous other heroes of painful progress recommend?

There is a chance that what was called a “travesty” more than once at the L.C.S. Board meeting just might result in peaceful protest, an avalanche of free speech, or, perhaps, economic pressure. It might suggest the election of a new school board that might remove a cloud of unwarranted doubt and suspicion where none should exist. Leaving such decisions unexplained doesn’t make it for the thoughtful, in my opinion.

History surely would not tell the protesters who attended the L.C.S. Board meeting three days before Independence Day to “pack it in.”

“Tigers” aren’t quitters who go away quietly and are never heard from again. They are willing to give it a “go”, stand up for what is right, and hang in there.

Sincerely yours,

Gary Kent

Albion