Student's Bestiality Story Upsets Stanwood -- School Officials Embarrassed; Newspaper Adviser May Lose Job

STANWOOD - A Stanwood High School student who brought the taboo topic of bestiality out of the barn and onto the pages of the school newspaper has landed the paper's adviser in deep trouble after school officials found the article inappropriate and embarrassing.

"How many of you out there live on a farm?" the headline asked. In Stanwood, the answer is plenty.

So the story - claiming that a fifth of farm boys engage in sex with animals and soliciting opinions on whether that's OK - touched off a furor.

"It was a very irresponsible thing to let happen," Raymond Reid, Stanwood School District superintendent, said yesterday.

"It was inappropriate. It has nothing to do with our curriculum or what we're promoting. I think we're all very embarrassed."

The eight-paragraph piece in the Spartan Spectrum ran Dec. 12 on Page 8, under the heading "Other Stuff."

By the next day, the whole city knew about it, even before that night's School Board meeting, where a parent stood up, read the story aloud and said he was "saddened" by the whole affair.

The matter-of-fact story, by Spectrum staff writer Liz Davis, quoted statistics from the works of Wardell B. Pomeroy, a sex researcher who in the late 1940s collaborated with Alfred Kinsey on landmark studies on male and female sexuality.

Pomeroy's data indicated that about one in five boys who lives on a farm or visits regularly had sex with animals.

It went on to ask students' opinions on whether they viewed such behavior as immoral.

One student quoted said, "It's disgusting," while another said, "I don't believe it's morally wrong because I read it in a book that (it) is 2,000 years old."

Davis, the writer, won't be disciplined, Reid said. Davis could not be reached for comment.

But English teacher and four-year Spectrum adviser Val Schroeder could lose her $1,500-a-year adviser position or face other disciplinary measures, according to Stanwood teachers union President Dave Woodward.

Schroeder could not be reached for comment.

Reid, who said he had not been given an explanation on why the story was published, said he couldn't comment on personnel matters. But he did say: "It's not going to go unnoticed. The matter will be dealt with."

Woodward said he was waiting to hear what action the district proposed to take.

Woodward also said he didn't know "and didn't want to know" why the story was published but supposed no one at the newspaper expected such a negative reaction.

But Woodward, who once edited the monthly student paper, defended Schroeder's position. "It's a pretty thankless job," he said. "If you do a good job, that's expected. If you do something wrong, people are all over you."

Reid said new guidelines for what's publishable in the paper are being devised.

"We're not trying to deny students free speech. But I think that needs to be tempered by appropriateness," he said.