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Around Kidder, Thayer Has Backers
By STEVE ROCK and SCOTT CANON
Kansas City Star
October 2, 2005
KIDDER, Mo. — Although some Kidder residents express concern
about allegations surrounding Thayer Learning Center, there are city
and church leaders who passionately defend the school.
Thayer has provided an economic boon to struggling Caldwell
County and the city of Kidder, which has fewer than 300 residents.
It’s easily the largest employer in the city and — coupled with a
related business operated by Thayer owners John and Willa Bundy —
has pumped more than $10,000 of tax revenue into county coffers
since 2003.
And some parents and students, despite acknowledging the
facility’s abrasive approach, think it helps straighten out troubled
teens.
Judy Smith, the county’s economic development director, firmly
believes in Thayer’s mission and has toured the facility.
“I saw kids’ lives changed for the better,” she said.
Richard Evans, Kidder’s part-time city clerk, said Thayer
students had fixed up the city park. They manned the color guard at
the town parade, he said, and entered the city’s talent show.
Evans also said the school offers good wages, and that has drawn
new residents to Kidder.
Caldwell County Sheriff Kirby Brelsford has publicly supported
Thayer despite numerous abuse allegations on file in his office. In
a Jan. 26 story in the North Missourian of Gallatin, he said: “Our
department hasn’t had any major problems with them at all through
the past couple of years. …
“It seems everybody’s head-hunting this place. The public’s
trying to eat them alive before the facts are all in, and I don’t
think that’s fair.”
More recently, Brelsford told The Kansas City Star that he
“should have stayed more neutral.” He also said Thayer doesn’t get
preferential treatment from his office even though Thayer officials
donated uniform pants — valued at less than $200, he said — to the
Sheriff’s Department several years ago.
“I would not do that again,” Brelsford said of accepting the
donation. “That doesn’t look good.”
Church officials also have come to the facility’s defense.
According to former Thayer employee Linda Raichel, members of the
local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — which claims the
Bundys and several other Thayer employees as members — came to her
home. The visit occurred after she had called the state’s
child-abuse hot line and had expressed concerns to Brelsford about
the treatment of some children.
“They told me that I was costing Thayer money and that I needed
to apologize and drop it,” Raichel said. “I told them, ‘When hell
freezes over, I will drop it.’ ”
David Jensen, president of the Hamilton branch of the Mormon
church, doesn’t remember the conversation quite that way.
“I guess my recollection was that … it wouldn’t do her any good
or the school any good by making complaints,” he said.
“She has the thinking of, ‘Well, this is strange; this isn’t how
I’d treat my kids.’ I tried to help her understand that this is a
business.”
Jensen said he has been to Thayer two or three times and had
never seen signs of abuse.
Even some former students who didn’t relish their Thayer
experience have been encouraged by the final results.
Bess Burnett, 18, of Maryland was troubled by drug use and
failing school work when her parents sent her to Thayer.
She despised her time at Thayer — where she was once forced to
eat her own vomit, she said — and thought too much force was used in
twisting girls’ arms behind their backs.
But she is now working, living alone and attending a technical
college in Florida.
“In the end, it was all worth it,” she said.
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