After more than 30 years in the news business, not much surprises me any more.
Until yesterday.
There has been a rash of recent incidents in the news concerning teachers and coaches facing charges for being sexually involved with students, former students and players.
Yesterday it hit in Delco. Again.
When I first heard of the charges filed against William Barber, 38, a teacher at Garnet Valley Middle School, in connection with an alleged relationship he had with a 15-year-old girl who was a student of his, I kind of expected what was going to happen next.
The story would explode, first on our website, then on social media.
As I said, that much I expected.
What happened next was not.
I could not figure out why Barber's name was so familiar.
It didn't take long to find out why.
A quick search of our online archive pointed out this was not the first story we had done on Barber. In fact, back in August we had done a feature on Barber and his wife and the fundraising campaign they were promoting to raise money for pediatric cancer. Their daughter was battling cancer.
They sort of piggy-backed off the phenomenal success of the Ice Bucket Challenge to raise money for ALS and came up with the Lemon Shot Challenge. They would challenge people to take a shot of lemon juice and make a donation to help fight cancer.
Now Barber has another kind of fight on his hands.
I have to be honest here. My first inclination when I heard about this new twist in the story was whether that should be a part of it at all. The last thing I wanted to do was add to this family's heartache. It soon became pretty clear it would be part of the story. The school district even mentioned the fundraising efforts in their email message to the school community.
I rely on my journalist's background to remind myself that at this point these are merely allegations. Barber retains the presumption of innocence. I hope these charges aren't true. I fear otherwise.
Some days you just shake your head.
Comments