TAYLOR URGED TO QUIT CAPE SCHOOL BOARD

The Cape Girardeau NAACP has asked a member of Cape Girardeau's Board of Education to resign following an alleged threat to a student. Board member Terry Taylor says the complaint is unfounded.

"I most definitely will not resign," he said. "I have never done anything to discriminate or be prejudiced to any child in the school district."

Board President Dr. Bob Fox said the issue is a personal one between the NAACP and Taylor, not the organization and the school board.

"This is something going on with Terry's family," Fox said. "This is a family problem not a board problem."

Dawn Evans, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, thinks the issue escalated from a personal one to one that required action by the NAACP. The organization charges that Taylor threatened a student on school property.

Evans recently wrote a letter to Dr. Bob Fox, board president, and sent carbon copies to the entire board asking for Taylor's resignation.

Evans explains the situation this way:

Taylor's daughter Sarah, who is white, is dating a black high school student, Jonathan Jenkins.

"On a couple of occasions, Mr. Taylor has made threats to the young man and was very angry with his daughter," Evans said. She also claims Taylor has made racial slurs.

But Evans said the complaint questions Taylor's actions one November morning when he saw his daughter and the young man sitting in her car eating doughnuts before school. The young man says Taylor saw them, pointed at him and said, "You're dead."

Taylor says he heard from some teachers at the school that Jenkins had been driving his daughter's car, which is registered in his name. At the time, Jenkins didn't have a driver's license.

"I went to see if he was driving the car," Taylor said. "He was not. I pointed at both of them and drove away. I never got out of the car or rolled the window down and never spoke."

Fox said the incident was investigated in November and December by then Superintendent Neyland Clark, who determined the charge was unfounded.

"From what I understand he pointed his finger at them specifically because he was driving his daughter's car and he didn't have his driver's license," Fox said. "Is pointing a finger at someone threatening someone?"

Fox said he is having trouble responding to the NAACP because he doesn't have a copy of the complaint. "She sent everybody a letter saying they have a complaint, but if they don't let us know what the complaint is how can we respond?"

Evans said Fox is avoiding the issue by demanding to see the hand-written complaint made by the young man's mother. "He knows exactly what the complaint consists of," Evans said.

Evans won't turn over the handwritten complaint, she said, because the young man's mother is afraid.

"I have never threatened the young man or his mother," Taylor said.