Look what I found!!!

I was doing a vanity search (when you search your own name) on Google because I was bored and I stumbled across this article that was published about me years ago in the Ashtabula Star Beacon.

If you want to know something interesting about me and my past, this is one that should entertain you all, and for those that have known me for years will remember this...



BYRON GUNTER takes in the cameras right after his battle with school administrators over a goatee was revealed.

Chin in the spotlight

Edgewood student hopes his moment of fame means something

BY MANDY WHITE
Staff Writer
ASHTABULA TOWNSHIP - Byron Gunter is sitting in the Ashtabula Mall's food court with his laptop computer blinking on the table.
"Way to go Byron!" a young guy in a Edgewood jacket approaches, and pats him on the shoulder. "How's it goin' man?"
"All right.," Gunter replies. Aforesaid young guy leaves. Gunter laughs. "People have told me that I'm the most popular guy at school. Not that everyone likes me, but they all know me."
As well they should. Like it or not, 18-year-old Gunter has been enjoying his 15 minutes of fame in a big way as the most (for the moment) famous teen in Ashtabula County.
The story is familiar to most due to media attention. Briefly: there is a policy at Edgewood Senior High School which states that while students may be mustached, goateed is just a hair past bounds. An unpopular rule, Edgewood students have often complained only to be told by administrators nothing could be done.
Gunter, who was made to shave or face detention, decided over Christmas break to write U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette for some advice.
LaTourette, perhaps smelling some good publicity, supported Gunter by listing some positive role models sporting beards. The Cleveland Plain Dealer was apparently tipped off that a story was brewing and interviewed Gunter. At press date, "the goatee story" has been covered by all three major television networks, as well as Fox, UPN and Cleveland channels 3, 5 and 8. A crawl line appeared on CNN about his story.
There have been three pieces about Gunter in the Plain Dealer, an article and an editorial in the Star Beacon, plus an AP story that was published in newspapers across the country.
A few weeks after the first blush of excitement, television cameras no longer greet Gunter after school. However, Gunter is determined to make sure the hoopla surrounding chin hair isn't reduced to last week's clippings.
"The whole point of all of this is to get this on the (school board) agenda," Gunter says. "A goatee is an expression of individuality. It's something worth fighting for."
His method of fighting, - going above school hierarchy - has made him rather unpopular with Buckeye Local School's Superintendent Joseph Donatone and the Buckeye Local School Board. Gunter says, however, that he and his parents have tried to explain Gunter's position and why the facial hair rule should be changed to both board and Donatone. Gunter wrote a letter addressing the board, as well as a letter to the superintendent.
"(One of the board members) told my mom that if I didn't like (the goatee policy,) I could go to Ashtabula or Conneaut," Gunter says.
Feb. 17, a Buckeye school board meeting will take place. All students in Edgewood's senior government class have been asked to attend. Gunter says he plans on bringing the issue directly up for discussion and for consideration to be put on the agenda.
"My plan is to make a spectacular presentation to the board. My parents are coming and some other adults and some of my friends."
Gunter says that despite reluctance for the issue to be put on the board's agenda, he and his parents will continue to fight. The senior contacted the American Civil Liberties Union about the issue last week through a letter, though ACLU hasn't yet responded. Gunter won't say if court proceedings are the next step.
"I'll fight until the end of the year if I have to. I'll fight until I've won."
What do fellow Edgewood seniors think of such a "fight"?
Most asked had an opinion one way or another. Tonya Morrison, a senior at the high school, smiled evilly when asked about Gunter, dialed a phone number and handed the reporter the phone.
"SHE'LL tell you how it is."
The phone number belonged to Audra Hatch, an Edgewood senior who is well known in school for her school spirit.
"He's dealt with it for three and a half years. He's only got three and a half months left," Hatch points out. Hatch says that a lot of students think the issue is a bit insignificant; even worse an embarrassment to them and Edgewood itself due to some media ridicule toward the school.
"For the first time since I've been a student here, I'm embarrassed to be an Edgewood student," she says.
Jimmy Howell, senior class treasurer, U.N. president and holder of the sacred chalice, is diplomatic. "Whether or not I approve of Byron's crusade is irrelevant. However, I admire his fortitude to pursue his goal. Not too many people are aware of the opposition he has faced."
Andrea Cozza, senior class president and student council vice president, walks a fine line between supporting Gunter and understanding the school's position. The fact that she has been dating Gunter for the past five months doesn't help. Cozza believes that no matter what the outcome, having this issue come up has been positive for Edgewood students and especially Gunter.
"He's so much more confident now," she says. "I think it gave him a lot more ambition to change things that people think can't be changed."
"But it hurt him in a way too," she adds. "A lot of people look at him differently now. I don't think Byron ever intended it to get this big."
A friend of Gunter's, who prefers to remain anonymous, says he's sick and tired of hearing about it.
"Byron's my friend and all, but I think he's got a really big head from all the attention."
Gunter doesn't dispute it. "Oh yeah, my head is big. I'm enjoying this a lot. I'm enjoying fighting. I'd do it again."
Gunter may have to do it again, and again if the board refuses to put the goatee issue on the agenda. Stay tuned.

*There were two more smaller articles that followed this one. Fuck it. I'll post those as well, although one was just a cut-out goatee. Too bad the image isn't popping up on the site that I got these articles from--I should just be happy I found them.*

Times aren't changing

A BOB LEBZELTER COLUMN

OK, OK. So I don't look as young as most of the columnists who usually appear on this page.
Just look at me compared to Laura Dowler. Even with her new photo, it doesn't take more than maybe two minutes - three at tops - to realize I'm older.
Anyway, keep reading, darn it. I'm going to make a point. You know, be patient. Us old folks sometimes ramble.
A few decades ago, I was a junior in high school. The 60s were over (yeah the period from the TV miniseries) but rebellion was still in the air. The year before, four students were killed at Kent State University during a protest over having military training on campus.
We had a rule at my school. No blue jeans. They were disruptive. They didn't create a conducive atmosphere for learning. Or as it came into we kids' ears: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
So something like 28 seniors, including many good students, came to class in blue jeans and were promptly told to go home.
It got everybody fired up and you could feel the tension throughout the day. Rumors abounded. An assembly was called in which there was a lot of shouting. We had TV cameras. Area newspapers picked it up, although the local paper played it inside because the editor apparently didn't believe in what the kids were doing.
My opinion on a lot of subjects has changed over the years. But back then I thought the whole thing was pretty silly. It was a power trip for the adults in authority. It wasn't about a learning environment, it was about who was in control and letting those controlled know it. In this, my opinion hasn't changed.
I also thought in the 1970s with all of the drugs and other problems kids elsewhere were getting into, making a point about blue jeans was pretty petty.
How petty was it? One kid took his education-stopping jeans and bleached them overnight. With all of the color drained, they were deemed appropriate for school.
Check out the play "Here and Now," opening tonight at 8 at the Ashtabula Arts Center and continuing through Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 2 p.m. It's about conflicts between kids and adults. One point in the play is kids are pretty much told what they can do and how to act all through school and this, somehow, is supposed to make them able to make their own choices and do their own thinking once they get out.
Anybody around during the blue jean controversy well remembers it, I'm sure. And if you would have asked me back then what it would be like at the millennium, I would have said nobody would be that petty.
Certainly by that science-fiction sounding date of 1999, with people driving around in space cars and visiting Jupiter, we would all be a little smarter.
And in all fairness, people are. Educators across the county have privately indicated the Buckeye school system's policy on goatees isn't worth the effort. Don't sweat the small stuff.
It's about time Buckeye Local Schools' board and administrators stuck their own chins out and got updated at least to the 1970s before the old century ends.
As for the blue jean controversy, a few months later the school board decided to get rid of its dress code. It didn't want to deal with potential legal squabbles.
An old 60s icon, Bob Dylan, who is still doing concerts today, once sang, "The times, they are a changing."
Not necessarily so, Bob. But maybe they will yet.
Lebzelter, who edits the Teen/Currents page, never did too well at growing a goatee. Now he has trouble growing hair in other places.

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Hair's an experiment

So with all of the publicity about goatees at Edgewood Senior High School, you probably have a million questions.
Are goatees uncomfortable?
If I had a goatee would I be even dumber than I am now?
Is Mother Nature sexist because girls can't grow goatees?
What would I look like with one? Are they uncomfortable?
Well, as a public service, Teen/Currents is providing you with a goatee. Just save this to your hard drive, size it to fit your face, print it and paste it on.
You're welcome.