Natrona County High School Investigates ‘KKK’ Written On Pickup

A Natrona County High School official took a spray bottle to a "I (heart) KKK" sign hand-drawn on a pickup's window in the school's parking lot this afternoon after the mother of an African-American junior at the school reported it.

Terri Yeadon was driving from Mills about 11:45 a.m. when she saw the pickup, she said.

"No, that' can't be what I just read," Yeadon said.

She and saw the pickup with the "KKK" -- the acronym for the Ku Klux Klan -- again on Poplar Street when it passed her again, she said.

"I'm thinking to myself, 'You're nothing but a racist ass,'" Yeadon said.

She couldn't do anything about it because it was a public street. But it turned onto West Collins Drive, then Spruce Street, and it finally pulled into the school's south parking lot, she said.

After Yeadon went into her house, she told her daughter about it. Her daughter went across the street and took a picture of the window of the pickup.

Her daughter also went to the school office and somebody there said students have found their vehicles had been "tagged," or had graffiti written on them.

But Yeadon said that wasn't the case here because she saw the pickup with the writing earlier in the day.

About 2 p.m., a school official carrying a spray bottle went to the pickup, washed away the sign, and the driver of the pickup drove it off the lot, Yeadon said.

Natrona County School District spokeswoman Tanya Southerland said she could not comment on this specific incident because the school began an inquiry into it.

The district has non-discrimination policies that include this statement prohibiting harassment based on ethnicity, disability, ancestry, national origin, religion or sexual orientation: "Any discriminatory acts which affect a student’s right to an equal opportunity to participate in the educational opportunities provided by the District."

Yeadon said she has a responsibility to call out this behavior.

"Not only am I a parent, but I am a citizen of this community. I'm a taxpayer. I have a right to voice my opinion," she said.

Two years ago, her son was a freshman and a student uttered a racial epithet and punched him so hard in the face he needed stitches and surgery, Yeadon said.

The attacker got a $750 fine and a 10-day suspension, which wasn't enough punishment, she said.

"I should have done more than I did at that point in time," Yeadon said. "That was a mistake then; that was two years ago. That mistake's not happening again."