A man’s speech mirrors his inner disposition. That is to say, what a man says is telling of his character. Idiotic speech is indicative of a stupid person. Spoken untruths reveal a liar, a man who disregards the truth. Obviously, a good person does not say bad things and a bad person does not say good things. Furthermore, a tasteless person says tasteless things and a hateful person says hateful things.

By saying in a May 1, 2010, letter to the editor that the “Riviera Patriot” made “tasteless and hateful attacks” against him, Riviera ISD Superintendent Ernest Havner, in effect, called my father a hateful and tasteless person.

I don’t know if you know my father, Vern Crocker, but he is quite possibly one of the most respected men in this county. My father is a man of honor and integrity, justice and humility. My father is a loving and righteous man who cares greatly about his family, his community, and his country. My father’s word is a binding contract, as it should be. My father is a great father, a wonderful grandfather, a loving husband and a quality home builder without equal. My father is a courageous man of sage wisdom and great intelligence. My father is a gentleman. My father is a true patriot.

Justice demands that I take a stand in defense of my father, not because he is my father, but because he is an honorable, just, and loving man.

I will be lucky if I become half of the man that my father is, and could dote on him all day. However, my writings about him could be waved off as “mere opinions” or those of a pouting child upset because some bad man said some bad things about daddy. So, I encourage you, if you do not know my father, ask those who know him personally as to his character. Ask the men under his employ. Ask his neighbors. Ask those who have had the good fortune of working with him in a professional capacity. Ask those for whom he has built a home.

Anyone who says that my father is anything less than the most upstanding citizen and a model Christian, is lying through their teeth. Riviera ISD Superintendent Ernest Havner is lying through his teeth.

It wasn’t enough for Havner to malign just my father; he had to besmirch the good name of all of my family members who attend Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Riviera, saying, in essence, that my family is dishonest, sanctimonious and two-faced.

He had the gall to say that my family sits in the front row of Church (It does) but apparently does not practice what it preaches. Assume, for just a second, that Havner is right (which he is not). Even if my family was a bunch of two-faced, manipulative liars (which they are not), what kind of message does it send when one “refutes” his opponents in this way? Is that the level of professionalism a community should seek in a school administrator? What he should have done was attack the argument not the arguer. However, he cannot do that, because the arguments raised against him are logically sound. My father has rightfully accused the Superintendent of numerous wrongdoings, always providing factual proof, often using Havner’s own contradictory speech against him. My brother, who also sits in that front pew, stood before the Riviera ISD Board of Trustees and delivered a speech in which he cited instances of violations of district policy necessitating, by law, the nonrenewal of Havner’s contract. Havner should have been man enough to put petty emotion aside and attempt to systematically refute, using proof, all objections raised against him by my family, objections that were always made, using irrefutable proof, in public meetings and forums, and never in the dark. Why does Ernest Havner rely on rhetoric and emotion based rationale?

The most disturbing and angering offense is Havner’s calling into question the integrity of my mother. I can dispassionately and without bias say that my mother is the greatest woman I have ever known. My mother’s moral character is beyond reproach. Ernest Havner will hide behind blatant lies, unsubstantiated claims and willful misrepresentation of the facts all day long. He can lie about the school, the bond election or any number of other things, without me getting involved. The rest of my family is involved enough. But he cannot lie and represent my mother as anything other than the beautiful, Catholic woman that she is. I will not stand for it. He can make all sorts of unwarranted, malicious claims from behind a letter to the editor, but that coward wouldn’t dare call my mother an impious, two-faced liar to my face.

In a pitiable attempt to sound intelligent and holy, Havner made reference in his letter to the editor to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and quoted Mother Teresa. Sadly, he misspelled Mother Teresa’s name and misconstrued the meaning of the allegory.

Plato used the allegory to explain to his friend Glaucon the correspondence theory of truth. It is not meant to invite us to “think out of the box”, as Havner stated. It was intended to show that sense perception (seeing, hearing, feeling, etc.) does not constitute knowledge and that perception does not always correspond to reality. To his credit, the last point was the only one that Havner showed even the slightest apprehension of. However, it should be noted that there is a huge difference between there being “two sides to every story” (referenced by Havner) and the possible discrepancy between perception and reality. Perhaps, he should have studied up a bit in between Google searching for Mother Teresa quotes and finding that cheesy line about friends and angels that sounds like it was robbed from a corny inspirational poster from the late 1980s.

On a side note, friends should pool their money and buy a copy of the 2009 Seahawk yearbook. It is so horrendously bad, that words cannot do the injustice of its existence justice. However, do not be mistaken and think that the present (2010) yearbook advisor had anything to do with it. She was lauded by a Taylor Publishing Company sales representative, in a September 18, 2009, email about the 2009 yearbook sent to the Riviera ISD Business Manager, as being “quite determined to work closely with me this year to improve your yearbook program and make up for any past mistakes in design, editing, finances, etc. I think she will make you proud.” The 2009 Seahawk yearbook netted a roughly $10,000 loss. They left out pictures of two entire middle school grades! The same Taylor Publishing Company sales representative referenced earlier said in a different email, “It seems that our problem with those empty pages in your book comes back to your former adviser. Had he proofed his pages, he clearly would have seen these pages showing up blank, and he could have fixed them before having a rep publish.” He could have fixed it! That’s not all! Some of the homecoming court duchesses had their titles misspelled to sound like a feminine hygiene product! The yearbook would truly be laughable, if it was not for its hefty price tag and its robbing students of the ability to remember, with pride, their school years in Riviera. The advisor signed off on every page of the yearbook before it was published. Keep that in mind when you read it. The production of the yearbook is also a class. This prompts the question: what direction, if any, did students receive from their teacher and what grades did the students receive for their efforts?

The yearbook is stylishly bound evidence of an educator’s utter failings and incompetence in matters of management and oversight.

The yearbook debacle is just one of the many tragicomedies that unfolded in this episodic nightmare Riviera finds itself in.

It saddens me to see the district where I went to school for much of my life run like a foolish circus with Ernest Havner front and center, like a trained bear.

Riviera has had enough. If you have any dignity, resign your position, pack your bags, and get out of our town!