Video of meeting goes viral
Becky Zigrang began her remarks at the Clarion-Goldfield-Dows (CGD) School Board meeting last Wednesday with a big "thank you" to CGD Athletic Director Jeff Meyer for allowing her and her husband Jean to hold the first annual "Slam the Stigma" event at the CGD High School during the basketball games November 28th. After losing their sixteen year old son Brandon, a CGD high school student, to suicide earlier that year the Zigrangs organized the event to help prevent future suicides, and to help students with their mental health in general. "I have had so many positive comments and 'thank you's' from students and parents," she told the board. "I think this was just what our community needed to bring awareness to mental health, resources available, and for kids to know that it is OK to acknowledge your struggles and to seek help," she added.
But what she had to say after those initial remarks had to do with something which she said she had learned eleven days before the Slam the Stigma event, about the alleged actions of CGD Superintendent Joseph Nelson. "I would like to make the school board members and any community members that are watching this meeting to know, though, that Mr. Nelson interfered with our son's funeral," Mrs. Zigrang said.
She then related how on November 17 she was informing the family's Priest, Father Blake, about the Slam the Stigma event during a visit at the Zigrang home, and expressed to him her thoughts regarding Superintendent Nelson "and how he would like to erase the memory of Brandon being a member of the CGD school due to being a victim of suicide." According to Mrs. Zigrang, Father Blake's response was "that's funny you say that because Mr. Nelson contacted me the night before Brandon's funeral and explained how we did not want to glorify Brandon because he feared a copycat suicide, so I changed my homily."
In spite of the emotionally charged subject, Mrs. Zigrang spoke clearly yet did not raise her voice. As she read her remarks Superintendent Nelson sat nearby, listening quietly, attentively, and politely.
"This was my son's everything day," Mrs. Zigrang told the board, detailing that he would never graduate from the high school, would never have the Eagle Scout celebration he'd worked toward, would never graduate college or get married, and how neither he, nor she and her husband, would ever be grandparents. "I would like to know how a celebration of life glorifies a person," she asked the board. Then she asked them how they would feel if it had been their child's funeral that had been interfered with. And how they would feel if their child's celebration of life were taken away, noting that Brandon's "was the only thing that he had for his 16 years of life."
Mrs. Zigrang also said Nelson had repeatedly blocked efforts by the Zigrangs and others to help her son's peers to cope with their grief, or memorialize him. Nelson "would not let another CGD family design and buy shirts for all the high school kids," she said. And, she alleged, Nelson had blocked fifteen therapists from Iowa Specialty Hospital from coming into the high school "to help the kids and staff process their grief." And when the hospital asked Nelson a second time to allow therapists to come to the school because, Mrs. Zigrang said, "parents were just walking in with their kids to be seen by a therapist because they were concerned about their wellbeing. They didn't call ahead, they didn't make a scheduled appointment, they just walked in because they were in crisis – you still denied them to come in."
And, according to Mrs. Zigrang, Nelson even went so far as to speak on the Zigrang's behalf without consulting them. "Mr. Nelson, you spoke on our behalf on so many things," she said, before alleging that Nelson "tried to get the Remember Brandon shirts shut down" and that Nelson said that the volleyball team could not do anything to honor Brandon's memory "because 'his parents did not agree with this'".
The Zigrangs also revealed several aspects of their alleged communications with Superintendent Nelson himself which they found concerning. According to Mrs. Zigrang, Nelson told her husband Jean that he had not known their son, and that Nelson "did not even know my name four days after my son died." She also said that at a meeting with the Superintendent, Nelson had asked Mr. Zigrang what the school could do, to which Mr. Zigrang had replied by asking Nelson to "take care of the kids". But instead, Mrs. Zigrang said, Nelson had blocked the Iowa Specialty therapists from the high school. Mrs. Zigrang said that Nelson was asked "how you sleep at night knowing these kids are struggling," and his response was, "I sleep just fine."
I have not been able to work on my grief," Mrs. Zigrang told the board, adding, "my weekly therapy is working on how I could not protect my son from his death and now I feel like I did not protect him at his funeral, from Mr. Nelson." Then, addressing Mr. Nelson directly, Mrs. Zigrang said "you are so lucky that the lack of your support did not cause another suicide." She said that Nelson had made his own prejudice about mental health clear, before forcefully adding, "our kids deserve better. You are a threat to their wellbeing!"
Shortly thereafter board President Elizabeth Severson informed Mrs. Zigrang that her time had expired. Jean Zigrang then spoke briefly, expressing his own concerns and hopes for improvement in the future. Then attorney Joe Corrow spoke to finish Mrs. Zigrang's prepared remarks, stating he represents the Zigrangs.
The meeting then went on to other business, which is covered in a separate article in this issue. But before adjourning, board President Severson spoke once more. "I personally have so much empathy for both of you," Severson said. "It's… not an easy thing. We wouldn't want to walk in your shoes. We don't always do everything right. We try to do everything right. But it's not something that, thankfully, we don't – that we do every day."
A video of the meeting posted to Facebook by Mrs. Zigrang went fairly viral. One version had been viewed more than 4,000 times by the time this article went to press. Another version also posted to Facebook had been seen more than 3,000 times. The population of Wright County is estimated at just under 13,000 people, by comparison.
