A Hamilton County School Board Candidate Flew* to D.C. for Jan. 6.
Why hasn't any news outlet seriously reported on it?
Early voting starts in Tennessee county general elections on Friday, July 15. The actual election is Aug. 4.
As I know as well as anyone, covering local elections with a tiny reporting team is hard. There’s never enough time, and there are always those candidates who won’t do an interview or even answer an email questionnaire — when all you’re trying to do is better help inform voters about how they would govern if elected.
But here’s what I don’t understand: The Chattanooga Times Free Press has known that Virginia Anne Manson, a Republican candidate for Hamilton County School Board (HCSB), flew on a private jet to Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 6, 2021, so-called “Stop the Steal” “rally” that ended in the total insurrection at the Capitol. They have known this since the candidate announced her run for office this past January, and they have chosen not to report that. In fact, the TFP has known about this trip since January 2021, when I told them about it — and sent them photographic evidence. And I was not the only one to do so. Yet they still have chosen to not report on this, either in 2021 or in 2022. The only mention of that trip has been in two editorial pieces, one of which called it “rumors” and then stated:
We would defend Manson's right to attend such a nonviolent protest just as we would any protester who attended any nonviolent rally following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. While we have said we don't believe there was enough fraud to have changed the results of the 2020 presidential election, there was enough election uncertainty to shake the faith of the American voter.
Of course, the right to protest is protected in the First Amendment, and so is a free press. But there was no election uncertainty, and electing a school board candidate (endorsed by “Moms for Liberty,” natch) who doesn’t believe in facts or in truly supporting public education is a recipe for disaster for Hamilton County Schools.
Virginia Anne Manson, nee Corey, is running for HCSB District 11 as a Republican. She was unopposed in the primary. Manson lives on Lookout Mountain, as do I, although on opposite sides of the state line, which means I cannot vote in this race. (Full disclosure here: I vaguely remember her from growing up, because we attended the same church at the time.) Her father was the former chief of staff of T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital, and her husband Tim was once sued by the U.S Department of Justice for failing to notice that the man he hired to oversee Standard Coosa Thatcher (SCT) Yarns’ retirement plan was skimming off the top to buy a Utah vacation home, among other allegations.
Manson is a graduate of the private all-girls school GPS. Her husband and three children are graduates of the private (now coed) Baylor School (also my alma mater). In fact, until her upcoming retirement, Manson has worked for Baylor since 2004 and is now the Director of Boarding Admission — which is to say, her full-time job for almost 20 years has been recruiting people to attend a private school whose boarding tuition for this year is $57,340, more than most colleges. (My non-boarding tuition in the 1990s was something like a tenth of that —still an incredible privilege, of which I am very aware.)
Manson’s children did attend a public elementary school in the aughts before starting Baylor in either 6th or 7th grade (current day tuition: $28,310, though employees do get a discounted rate). But that school, Lookout Mountain Elementary School, is likely the most well-funded in the county. The school’s website literally provides information on how to donate stocks to the school — not just money, but stocks, with broker info and all. (Please note: I did not go to LMES.)
All of this is to say, Manson is not someone with a lot of relevant public school experience to serve on a county school board. Especially not in District 11.
During redistricting this year, the Hamilton County Commission decided to increase the number of districts to 11 from the current nine. Some of the school board members fought to have a separate map, staying with nine districts, but that effort failed. So the new District 11 is, literally, entirely new.
The district encompasses the Tennessee side of Lookout Mountain — a solid wealthy, Republican voting block, though not quite as red as some suburban areas in the county. It also includes Lookout Valley (formerly Tiftonia), which is a mix of working-class, mostly white families, and a pricey, rapidly growing subdivision, Black Creek (formerly Cummings Cove). That area was even more solidly Republican in 2020 than Lookout.
But the rest of District 11 is St. Elmo (increasingly gentrified by white liberals); Alton Park (almost entirely Black and one of the most solidly Democratic blocks in the city); part of the Southside (mostly white and mostly liberal); East Lake (Black and increasingly Latino); and part of Missionary Ridge (mostly white, mostly Democratic voters).
In short, while District 11 includes the county’s wealthiest elementary school, it also includes some of the poorest schools in the county, which are almost entirely filled with minorities. Howard High School — the most well-known historically Black school in Chattanooga, whose students led sit-ins at lunch counters in 1960 — is now almost 50% Black, 50% Latino.
The neighborhoods in the new district are currently represented by two Democratic county commissioners, albeit before the redrawn lines. This will be the first partisan school board election since the legislature passed a law allowing them last year. The district leans slightly D, because even a Republican-controlled county commission still has to provide for minority representation. But in a year without a presidential race on the ballot and energized white GOP voters, it will likely be a very close race — unless a lot of Democratic voters stay home, in which case it could be a blowout. (It’s worth noting here that even in an uncontested primary, Manson walloped the uncontested Democratic candidate in vote totals. However, with very few contested Dem primaries, many voters skipped the primary or voted a Republican ballot to decide the likely next county mayor and district attorney.)
On January 6, 2021, Virginia Anne Manson was in Washington, D.C., at the now-infamous pro-Trump rally falsely promoting the lie that the election was stolen. Which it was not. Manson flew* to D.C. on a private plane with at least four other Lookout ladies, all from very old Lookout/Chattanooga money. In a submitted picture from a source, Manson is wearing a MAGA hat, standing with her four friends, with the Capitol in the background:
The other attendees included:
Beth “Boofie” Lupton* Crimmins. Her husband Ryan is the chairman and former president of Lawson Electric. (*Yes, she’s one of those Coca-Cola-money Luptons. Her father Tommy Lupton sold his business to Bob Corker, long before he became a mayor or senator. Fun fact: Tommy got so upset when the city decided to rename Ninth Street “Dr. M.L. King Jr. Blvd.” that he got the city to give his two buildings on a block on West Ninth their own address, Union Square. [Full disclosure: I was a runner for my dad’s law firm in one of those buildings in the 1990s and did not know that history at the time.]) Ryan is also a partner in a development group building a fancy gated golf resort on the back of Lookout on the Georgia side. Their daughter is now the resort’s director of marketing, after several years at Garden & Gun magazine. During that time, Boofie and Manson attended a magazine-sponsored skeet shoot. Oh, and Ryan’s currently the president of Baylor’s Board of Trustees.
Laura “Lolly” Jones. The descendent of a prominent textile and manufacturing family (Hedges/ Willingham/ Allison), she’s married to Tom Jones, the grandson of S.L. Probasco (and nephew of Alice Lupton, the wife of afore-linked Jack).
Susan Maclellan. Her husband Chris runs the Maclellan Foundation, a Christian non-profit supported by family wealth. The foundation has been long involved in funding a shelter for the unhoused in Chattanooga. But it’s worth noting the foundation’s two most recent 990s. In 2018, $57,826 went to the shelter, and $46,706 went to “national research to gauge the populace’s feelings toward religious liberty issues.” They also spent $45,837 on consultants and $35,640 on “convening leaders for learning the foundation hosted different trainings for grantees and the general public, including a training on intercultural intelligence and a training series on fatherhood among Latinos,” whatever that means. But in 2019, $60,471 went to the shelter, $124,244 went to “research to gauge the populace’s feelings toward religious liberty …and about the state of prayer in the U.S.” — and $553,164 was spent on consultants and conferences, and $135,238 on an “online Bible course.” Christian charity indeed.
Lindsey Moore. Married to investor Ricky Moore, Lindsey is the daughter of the Bickerstaffs and cousins of the Elders, who both developed the exclusive Elder Mountain community. An illuminating 2017 interview with her father posted on YouTube, seemingly as part of her son’s school assignment, has him admit his opposition to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and says that he does not believe discrimination currently exists against Black people trying to get jobs or even in everyday life. (Notably, he also says he doesn’t remember the Howard sit-ins either, just “riots.”)
Manson’s campaign claims she never entered the Capitol and was “in her hotel room in Virginia when she saw on television all that occurred,” according to a statement provided to the TFP’s rightwing opinion editor, Clint Cooper. But if that statement is even true, was she watching with horror and distress? Or was she popping champagne, hoping the election would somehow violently be overturned?
Shortly after the above Facebook picture went semi-viral in Lookout communities in January 2021, a prankster had signs printed and placed strategically around the mountain: “Golf Wives Matter.”
As of the last reporting period, all four women have donated to Manson’s campaign — $500 each, except for Boofie and her husband donating a total of $950. By the end of April, Manson had raised $40,550 in total, with $33,346 on hand. That’s more than double the money raised by Democratic opponent Jill Black, another Lookout resident.
Notable donors to Manson include $1,000 from BOW-PAC, the PAC of state Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson); $1,000 from NOOGA PAC, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleishman’s PAC; $1,500 from Virginia Caldwell; $500 from Thomas Decosimo (who lost his school board race last time); $1,600 from Manson’s brother Allen Corey; $1,600 from Manson’s husband Tim; $1,600 from their daughter-in-law Schuyler; and a lot of other large donations from other richie riches of Lookout and Chattanooga.
Prior to the May primary, Black had raised $20,346. Notable donors include Olan Mills II and Robert Mills, each donating $1,600; Anne Bright of the Proprioceptive Writing Center Southeast, $1,600; Marshall Bright, $1,600; P.K. Brock, $1,000; Paul Brock, $500; D.C. Montague, $1,000; Alice Smith, $1,000; and Bill Aiken, $250.
Steve McKinney, who originally pulled a petition as a Republican before filing to run as an Independent, reported raising $100 in the first quarter.
Second-quarter disclosures are due today, July 11.
It might be easy to say what does it matter if one white woman from Lookout wins versus another one — neither will be sending their kids to Howard, neither will ever understand what it’s like to grow up in Alton Park, neither is particularly well equipped to address the needs of the growing Latino population in the district, many of whom cannot even vote. But here’s Manson’s approach:
As a community, we have all had to navigate two major crises: The coronavirus pandemic and the over-politicization of every institution that we hold dear. I have a strong conviction that our leaders have failed us and have propagated a spirit of division so great that many believe that we can never be unified again. This is tragic. …
Our children … are now seeing the great political divisions among adults be pushed down to them through curriculum. This is unacceptable. No matter what political party we are affiliated with, we should all be able to come together to make decisions that help our children, not hurt them. …
I have been a part of making The Baylor School one of the top schools in our state and I look forward to using this experience to work with the students, teachers, and the administration to move our schools toward excellence. Our district has fallen behind academically for far too long and I am committed to serving the families of the 11 different schools in District 11 to get us back on track. My campaign focuses on a strategy that is clearly identified as Parents Know Best. [italics mine]
Meanwhile, here’s what Black, an actual social worker, has to say about her campaign:
Equity for Students: Meet our students where they are and give them the tools they need to be successful.
Support for Teachers: Provide competitive pay for educators and more support in the classroom through aides, coaches, and paraprofessionals.
Investment in Facilities: Address facility repair and construction needs so every student in Hamilton County is proud of the school they attend and our schools meet the needs of our growing community now and in the future.
As someone who attended Baylor — one of the wealthiest schools in the southeast, with a campus over 750 acres, an average class size of 15, and an exceedingly white population — it is ludicrous to think that experience luring rich kids to live on campus has any translatable experience to helping run public schools, especially some of the poorest and Blackest ones in the county. It’s also laughable that someone who falsely believes that Trump won the election to the extent that she would fly to D.C. for January 6 also thinks public schools are “over-politicized” and that “no matter what political party we are affiliated with,” we can all kum ba yah our massive problems in public schools away. (But, of course, she neither thinks nor wants that.)
And that, again, is why I remain flummoxed that neither the TFP nor local television outlets nor even Black’s campaign has made this a big deal. It should be a BIG DEAL that a school board candidate does not believe in facts or in actual democracy. It should be a HUGE DEAL that when I first told a TFP reporter about this back in 2021 (before Black was even running), they were first told by their editor that the story was not a story and then told it was going to be “reassigned as a fluffy feature about [the women’s] experience” to a reporter who didn’t cover politics. Of course, that story never ran. Even after Vanity Fair ran a lengthy feature on a group of rich Memphis bros who flew to D.C. for the same event, the TFP still declined to follow up with the Lookout ladies.
As the Congressional hearings have shown, the Jan. 6 “rally” was designed to be an insurrection. It was designed to kill people. It was designed to target the vice president. It was designed to overthrow the election. It was designed to overthrow the government. And anyone who supported that does not deserve to serve in office — especially the one in charge of educating our children.
In any case, a new prankster has been posting coordinating signs next to Manson’s around the district. They have an arrow pointing directly to the side and say, “Candidate that was at the January 6 insurrection.” Who knows, maybe the TFP will finally write about that.
*Although several people have told me about a private plane, one tipster says the ladies may have driven to D.C. If you want to track the flights, go for it. I’m going back on my internet sabbatical.
If you want to send me tips, I’m on Signal, Confide, Twitter and Facebook. [However, I’m taking a social media break for July, so be patient with my responses.] You can also reply to this email. If you want to help fund my reporting, I’m on Venmo @cgervin and CashApp at $cgervin. A free press isn’t cost-free.
Well written and researched. Amazing that the election is concurrent with the hearings. This is big news that voters deserve to know. So many secrets in Chattanooga.
Putting a Mom’s for Liberty candidate on a public school board is like putting a Fox in the henhouse as their stated purpose is to slowly starve public schools by siphoning off students to privates and charters. Perhaps more interesting is the sad, but rarely reported, academic record of Baylor students on all standardized testing measures such that they have trouble placing students in top ranked universities. Universities also look warily at Baylor grads’ poor drop out rate in the first year of college as it affects their rankings. (How do I know? Because I taught there, and it was discussed at virtually every faculty meeting. (They at least had the self knowledge to understand how this spelled future disaster…should Americans ever wake up to the fact money and privilege do not always buy excellence. But they couldn’t stop the hemorrhage bc, you know, coddling privilege was their primary concern.) In short, Manson wants to destroy public education so she can replace it with the ILLUSION of a superior private education. (And, yes, I taught in vastly superior public school systems for thirty years.). Voters need to do their research and then fully fund public schools. Americans don’t want to hear about the amazing work done in public schools because we love the illusion that money buys superior quality. The facts, however, do not bear this out.