“You have to be half nuts.” Why would anyone want to be a school board member?

A long, long time ago, when I was a cub reporter for my hometown newspaper, the Richmond County Daily Journal, editor Glenn Sumpter sent me to cover a school board candidates debate.

Among the candidates was a former high school classmate whom I considered a friend. In my story, I wrote that he was the only candidate who didn’t have children in the school system.

The intent was to show that he was by far the youngest of the candidates and would possibly bring fresh ideas to the board, but I heard from mutual friends that he accused me of maliciously torpedoing his candidacy.

He never spoke to me again until the day he died.

I suspect that today, if he thought I’d torpedoed his candidacy for the school board, he’d react differently. He’d probably send me a box of premium Godiva chocolates or a free subscription to the Kraft Macaroni of the Month Club.

“What,” you’re probably asking, “would make someone want to be a school board member during the most tranquil of times, but especially during times such as these?”

“You have to be half nuts,” Minnie Forte-Brown, a former Durham School Board Member said. She said it laughingly, but I sensed she was only half-joking.

“You have to really care about children, equity and excellence,” she said. “You have to believe that your presence on the school board, your ability to influence leadership, can make a difference.

“For instance, there are opportunities that aren’t available to all students, so you have to ask yourself ‘What can I, in my humble personage, do to help create more opportunities?’”

Whatever she did must have worked: Forte-Brown served on the Bull City’s school board from 2004 to 2020 and Durham Public Schools renamed its staff development center in her honor.

Being a school board member is a thankless job, but now it’s thankless and dangerous. In an October memo, Attorney General Merrick Garland noted “a disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence” against school officials. He vowed that the Justice Department would protect those officials and prosecute those who threaten them.

People have the right – nay, the duty - to protest on behalf of their crumb snatchers’ education, but they don’t have the right to threaten or intimidate.

Natalie Beyer, a Durham school board member since 2010, said no one could have envisioned a pandemic “and the way it’s been politicized in many places.”

That wouldn’t have dissuaded her, though, she said, because “being a school board member is the most heart-felt community-based community service” citizens can engage in. All of us believe in the promise of public education.”

They must, to endure the abuse I’ve seen them deal with — even pre-pandemic — over 42 years as a journalist.

Durham residents know all about rowdy school board protests, as theirs used to be “Can’t miss” TV. Seemingly monthly, CNN was beaming the raucous proceedings across the nation. You could count on someone being escorted or hoisted out of the meeting for protesting some board decision. You could also count on friends from other parts of the country calling and asking “What’s going on in Durham?”

My answer then was the one Forte-Brown gave me. “Parents were so passionate” about their children’s educations, she said, or about who would lead the school system.

Their concerns were not about such pearl-clutching issues as their children having to wear a mask or read a book that may make them uncomfortable.

Forte-Brown said “Police came to guard us sometimes in case people got violent… People will hate you, but when they see that you have integrity and care about their children’s education, they’ll love you and consider you an ally.”

Fat chance of that happening these days. How fraught is being a school board member now?

I’m guessing that’s the reason not one of the three current Durham school board members I repeatedly called to talk about it returned my calls.

That’s Kool & the Gang: I understand.

Mark Twain, America’s second-greatest writer, wrote “In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.”

Sorry, Mr. Twain, but you missed the mark there. If caring about the education of children who are not kin to you makes one an idiot or “half nuts,” we need more – not fewer – of such people.