Soldiering not a fit career at Oregon school
Career day photo of soldier with gun puts school district in a bind
Updated 30 March 2005: School compromises and allows a different picture, also with a gun. Details at bottom of post.
The Salem-Keizer School District has a very strict zero tolerance policy. Not only are weapons, replicas and look-alikes banned but so are images of them. Freshman Shea Riecke of McKay High School ran up against this policy when she tried to put a photo of her brother, Marine Corporal Bill Riecke, on her classroom’s career board.
She wanted to display the picture with those of other McKay grads’ career choices. Riecke’s teacher, Rick Costa, encourages the exhibits.
But Riecke’s photo created a little controversy. Actually, it kicked up a sandstorm of grief for the family and school-district officials because of the photo’s content. It pictures the Marine hefting a big gun while decked in military desert camies (camouflage). It was taken while he was stationed in Iraq; he will be redeployed there this summer.
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School officials denied the photo on the grounds the guns in the picture violated district policy. Riecke’s mother, Connie Riecke, appealed to district officials including Superintendent Kay Baker. Connie Riecke said she has not heard back from the district but was told that it probably could be displayed if she consented to having the weapons removed, via computer, from the photograph. Riecke said her son insists that it run as it is or not at all. She agrees with him.