September 10, 2024 • 13 mins
Terri Cunningham-Swanson was just appointed to the state library board, months after being recalled from a local school board.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Vordy's We've talked with our next guest a couple
of times. She she had some concerns like a lot
of parents do, about not only things she saw online,
but actually looking up and finding materials available to kids
in school libraries that she found to be objectionable. Now,
(00:22):
she didn't go in there with an iron fist and
say take this book and burn it, take that book
and ban it. She went in there and worked through
the system to be part of the Plattsmouth a Board
of Education. And for that she was called a heretic
in a witch and she was recalled from that board
(00:44):
after two different votes to get her out of there.
This apparently was not the end of her in politics,
as Governor Pillen just put her on the Nebraska Library Commission,
which has caused heads to explode all over Plasmith and beyond.
We welcome back to the program, the highly controversial Terry
(01:06):
Cunningham Swanson. Welcome back to News Radio eleven ten kfab.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Terry, Hello, it's my pleasure to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Here's my first thing here in looking at how the
Omaha World Herald put this story, and I saw variations
of it on other local media as well, it talked
about all the people that showed up at this library
meeting to speak out against you. And here it starts
off saying librarians, educators, and others leveled criticism directly at
(01:38):
Terry Cunningham Swanson, calling her unqualified to serve on the
Nebraska Library Commission and suggesting she poses a danger to
the state's libraries. And then it goes on and it
says more than because the impression I get is that
the room was full of librarians, educators, and others. And
then it says more than a half dozen people. Now,
(02:03):
I'm not the world's best estimator of crowds. I couldn't
tell you how many people were at the show. I
was at Friday night at Shadow Ridge to see Big
Head Todd and the Monsters in Oar. There were a
lot of people out there, but I think I could
probably do a pretty good estimate of more than a
half dozen people. Seven is it eight? I mean, how
(02:23):
you were there? How many people were there speaking out
against you?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I would say there was probably maybe fifteen people in
the room, and maybe half of those spoke partially what happened. First,
I'd like to say that I'm glad that people are
now aware that there is a thing called the Nebraska
Library Commission, because I think that's important for us to know,
(02:50):
and I don't think a lot of people knew before
last week that it was even a thing. But because
it's somewhat of an obscure entity within Nebraska, they don't
have people come to their meetings rarely, if ever, and
(03:10):
so there was I think that there was confusion for
the public comments. Generally, what will happen is that the
president of the board or the director of the Commission
will give parameters and say you have this many minutes
to speak, and the comments will go on for this
(03:32):
much time, generally like three minutes, and maybe comment will
end after thirty minutes or something like that. And there's rules.
If you bring in a comment, a handwritten comment that
you read on behalf of somebody else, generally that's your time.
You don't give multiple comments from you and other people.
(03:54):
And because he did not lay down any parameters whatsoever,
it was just a free for all, and people that
the six or seven that did speak were allowed to
just go on and on and on to read comments
that they had brought in from other people. One lady read. Gosh,
(04:14):
she probably read five different comments from letters that people
had sent in, and so there were more comments given.
I believed than there were people in the room, which
was inappropriate. It shouldn't have been handled that way. But
I would give the director a lot of slack because
I don't think he has had enough experience that he
(04:36):
really knew how to handle that.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
We've covered a lot of this ground before. I want
to restate things, and you can clarify or expand on
any of this stuff if you want, But you've brought
in material to this radio studio that you found objectionable
in Plasmith Community Schools, and that's why you wanted to
be on the school board to be able to highlight
some of this stuff. There were a number of books
(05:00):
that were highlighted for potential removal from the libraries per
the process, and some of the stuff that you tried
to read on the radio. I had to stop you
because it would earn US an FCC violation. You weren't
trying to do this by yourself. You were working within
the parameters of the school board. One of the individuals
(05:21):
who continuously speaks out against you is your son. We've
talked about this. He's not your only kid. You have
other children who have supported you in this. This is ground.
I don't feel like covering again because I know how
personal it is to your family. But it's been in
the media a lot, so now the media is looking
at just a few people who've suggested that you shouldn't
(05:45):
be on this board. Look, the governor appointed you to
the board. He stands by your appointment to the board.
So now I think the question is like, what are
you going to do on this board and why are
you there? What do you hope to accomplish a lot
of people think you're going to go through and start
burning and banning books.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
My intention has never been on the school board or
on the Nebraska Library Commission to burn or ban books.
I would like to clarify. Banning is a word that
the left uses constantly to conjure up ideas like Hitler
burning books and Nazis and things like that. To ban
(06:26):
a book, it's a legal process that you have to
go through, and there is no way that somebody on
a school board or on a library commission has the
power to ban a book. What we do is curate books.
We have to choose what goes into a library, what
(06:47):
doesn't come in or what to remove so that we
have space to bring new things in. That's called curation.
Every single library on the face of the earth does
this constantly, as well as civics committees, etc. So banning
is just a scare word that is being used to
try and make me sound horrible. And all I did,
(07:10):
again was just that process. Now, on the Nebraska Commission,
we oversee public libraries as well as school libraries, and
I think there is a lot of a lot of
things that can be done. If there was one news
station that did stay for the entire board meeting, everybody else,
once they got their highlights from the public comments, picked
(07:33):
up and left. They didn't care what we did. We
were voting on the budget for the coming year or
the coming two years possibly, but anyway, we were discussing
all of this, and there were other two other gentlemen
that were also added to the Library Commission at the
(07:54):
same time as I was, so there were three of us,
and we are we seemed to be very polarizosite. But
one of the comments made during the budget discussion was
upping the budget even more than what they were asking
(08:15):
for at the time, and We had discussion back and
forth about this is not an appropriate time to be
asking taxpayers of Nebraska for more money, and the discussion
on the other side was more is always better, and
I said, more is not always better. I come from
(08:35):
being a single mom raising four boys and having to
really work hard to provide for them and put food
on the table. And one of the new gentlemen I
think he was new, got his calculator out and said, well,
this is it only works out to be like zero
point seven cents for every tax payings to this thing.
(08:57):
And I said, okay, that sounds like nothing, But when
you've had to scrape the change out from your cup
holder in your car to pay for gas, that means something.
And when you have this agency and this agency and
this agency all asking for their point seven cents or
their five cents, or their twelve percent increase, whatever happens
(09:19):
to be, all of that falls on taxpayers. And we
are not in an economy where I feel it's appropriate
to continue to ask taxpayers for more. So no, more
is not better. So my whole intention is that I
do think there is a large percentage of Nebraska's a
(09:40):
majority that are not well represented that are not thought
first when it comes to raising taxes, that are not
thought of at all when it comes to using tax
dollars to pay for pornographic and obscene materials and Marxist
materials in their child's car room and in their library.
(10:03):
So my intention is always we need to look to
the people of Nebraska, the values of Nebraska, the things
that we hold deer, and that has to be our standard.
So that's kind of basically what I wanted to do.
In Platsmith and on the Library Commission.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
The governor says that you're a strong conservative and a
dedicated public servant, ready to fight to protect children from
pornographic content and inappropriate material readily available in school libraries.
It sounds like perhaps he's put you on this board
to go through and potentially root out this material, which
is what people who are opposed to you are afraid
(10:43):
you're going to do. So I ask again, Terry, are
you ready to launch an investigation into what's available in
what libraries and who has access to it.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I am absolutely ready to do that. I can tell
you with the makeup of the board at this point
in time that it would be shot down that I
doubt that any investigation or any type of movement in
that direction would happen. There's just not a majority of
(11:15):
conservative people on that board, so I don't expect that
it would be able to go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So you can, and I'm not going to ask, So
you can't unilaterally go in there and say this book's gone,
but you could use your platform to say, let me
tell you what's in this book and where it's available,
and the people in that particular school district could make
a decision on their own as to how much pressure
they're going to put on their local school board and
what can be done about it.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yes, and we can also citizens can put pressure on
the Nebraska Library Commission that we are a public entity,
and there have already been people that are very willing
to come forward and put pressure on the board to
get rid of somebody that doesn't have the same viewpoint
as them. We can have Nebraskans that feel the same
(12:04):
way that I do, come to the meetings and use
their time in the public comments to be able to say, hey,
this is something that I want to be investigated. This
is something that concerns me that I see as very
harmful to our young people. So yeah, Nebraskans need to
get involved. That was something when I was on the
(12:25):
school board, constantly asking people come to meetings, speak up
at the very least, email and let your views be known.
Because we think of ourselves as the silent majority, and
it is way past time to be silent. We need
to be as loud or louder than those that are
(12:45):
opposing us.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Saw an explosion of news stories about this late last
week and thought, wow, they must have packed this till
I saw the quote more than a half dozen people.
What an incredible estimation of a giant crowd. Terry Kinnahams
wantson member of the Nebraska Library Commission. They said that
they're not done opposing you being on this board, so
(13:08):
I'm sure we'll be speaking again. Terry, thank you very
much for your time this morning.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You got to have a great day.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Scott Voyes Mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven
ten KFAB
Scott Vordy's We've talked with our next guest a couple
of times. She she had some concerns like a lot
of parents do, about not only things she saw online,
but actually looking up and finding materials available to kids
in school libraries that she found to be objectionable. Now,
(00:22):
she didn't go in there with an iron fist and
say take this book and burn it, take that book
and ban it. She went in there and worked through
the system to be part of the Plattsmouth a Board
of Education. And for that she was called a heretic
in a witch and she was recalled from that board
(00:44):
after two different votes to get her out of there.
This apparently was not the end of her in politics,
as Governor Pillen just put her on the Nebraska Library Commission,
which has caused heads to explode all over Plasmith and beyond.
We welcome back to the program, the highly controversial Terry
(01:06):
Cunningham Swanson. Welcome back to News Radio eleven ten kfab.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Terry, Hello, it's my pleasure to be back.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Here's my first thing here in looking at how the
Omaha World Herald put this story, and I saw variations
of it on other local media as well, it talked
about all the people that showed up at this library
meeting to speak out against you. And here it starts
off saying librarians, educators, and others leveled criticism directly at
(01:38):
Terry Cunningham Swanson, calling her unqualified to serve on the
Nebraska Library Commission and suggesting she poses a danger to
the state's libraries. And then it goes on and it
says more than because the impression I get is that
the room was full of librarians, educators, and others. And
then it says more than a half dozen people. Now,
(02:03):
I'm not the world's best estimator of crowds. I couldn't
tell you how many people were at the show. I
was at Friday night at Shadow Ridge to see Big
Head Todd and the Monsters in Oar. There were a
lot of people out there, but I think I could
probably do a pretty good estimate of more than a
half dozen people. Seven is it eight? I mean, how
(02:23):
you were there? How many people were there speaking out
against you?
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I would say there was probably maybe fifteen people in
the room, and maybe half of those spoke partially what happened. First,
I'd like to say that I'm glad that people are
now aware that there is a thing called the Nebraska
Library Commission, because I think that's important for us to know,
(02:50):
and I don't think a lot of people knew before
last week that it was even a thing. But because
it's somewhat of an obscure entity within Nebraska, they don't
have people come to their meetings rarely, if ever, and
(03:10):
so there was I think that there was confusion for
the public comments. Generally, what will happen is that the
president of the board or the director of the Commission
will give parameters and say you have this many minutes
to speak, and the comments will go on for this
(03:32):
much time, generally like three minutes, and maybe comment will
end after thirty minutes or something like that. And there's rules.
If you bring in a comment, a handwritten comment that
you read on behalf of somebody else, generally that's your time.
You don't give multiple comments from you and other people.
(03:54):
And because he did not lay down any parameters whatsoever,
it was just a free for all, and people that
the six or seven that did speak were allowed to
just go on and on and on to read comments
that they had brought in from other people. One lady read. Gosh,
(04:14):
she probably read five different comments from letters that people
had sent in, and so there were more comments given.
I believed than there were people in the room, which
was inappropriate. It shouldn't have been handled that way. But
I would give the director a lot of slack because
I don't think he has had enough experience that he
(04:36):
really knew how to handle that.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
We've covered a lot of this ground before. I want
to restate things, and you can clarify or expand on
any of this stuff if you want, But you've brought
in material to this radio studio that you found objectionable
in Plasmith Community Schools, and that's why you wanted to
be on the school board to be able to highlight
some of this stuff. There were a number of books
(05:00):
that were highlighted for potential removal from the libraries per
the process, and some of the stuff that you tried
to read on the radio. I had to stop you
because it would earn US an FCC violation. You weren't
trying to do this by yourself. You were working within
the parameters of the school board. One of the individuals
(05:21):
who continuously speaks out against you is your son. We've
talked about this. He's not your only kid. You have
other children who have supported you in this. This is ground.
I don't feel like covering again because I know how
personal it is to your family. But it's been in
the media a lot, so now the media is looking
at just a few people who've suggested that you shouldn't
(05:45):
be on this board. Look, the governor appointed you to
the board. He stands by your appointment to the board.
So now I think the question is like, what are
you going to do on this board and why are
you there? What do you hope to accomplish a lot
of people think you're going to go through and start
burning and banning books.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
My intention has never been on the school board or
on the Nebraska Library Commission to burn or ban books.
I would like to clarify. Banning is a word that
the left uses constantly to conjure up ideas like Hitler
burning books and Nazis and things like that. To ban
(06:26):
a book, it's a legal process that you have to
go through, and there is no way that somebody on
a school board or on a library commission has the
power to ban a book. What we do is curate books.
We have to choose what goes into a library, what
(06:47):
doesn't come in or what to remove so that we
have space to bring new things in. That's called curation.
Every single library on the face of the earth does
this constantly, as well as civics committees, etc. So banning
is just a scare word that is being used to
try and make me sound horrible. And all I did,
(07:10):
again was just that process. Now, on the Nebraska Commission,
we oversee public libraries as well as school libraries, and
I think there is a lot of a lot of
things that can be done. If there was one news
station that did stay for the entire board meeting, everybody else,
once they got their highlights from the public comments, picked
(07:33):
up and left. They didn't care what we did. We
were voting on the budget for the coming year or
the coming two years possibly, but anyway, we were discussing
all of this, and there were other two other gentlemen
that were also added to the Library Commission at the
(07:54):
same time as I was, so there were three of us,
and we are we seemed to be very polarizosite. But
one of the comments made during the budget discussion was
upping the budget even more than what they were asking
(08:15):
for at the time, and We had discussion back and
forth about this is not an appropriate time to be
asking taxpayers of Nebraska for more money, and the discussion
on the other side was more is always better, and
I said, more is not always better. I come from
(08:35):
being a single mom raising four boys and having to
really work hard to provide for them and put food
on the table. And one of the new gentlemen I
think he was new, got his calculator out and said, well,
this is it only works out to be like zero
point seven cents for every tax payings to this thing.
(08:57):
And I said, okay, that sounds like nothing, But when
you've had to scrape the change out from your cup
holder in your car to pay for gas, that means something.
And when you have this agency and this agency and
this agency all asking for their point seven cents or
their five cents, or their twelve percent increase, whatever happens
(09:19):
to be, all of that falls on taxpayers. And we
are not in an economy where I feel it's appropriate
to continue to ask taxpayers for more. So no, more
is not better. So my whole intention is that I
do think there is a large percentage of Nebraska's a
(09:40):
majority that are not well represented that are not thought
first when it comes to raising taxes, that are not
thought of at all when it comes to using tax
dollars to pay for pornographic and obscene materials and Marxist
materials in their child's car room and in their library.
(10:03):
So my intention is always we need to look to
the people of Nebraska, the values of Nebraska, the things
that we hold deer, and that has to be our standard.
So that's kind of basically what I wanted to do.
In Platsmith and on the Library Commission.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
The governor says that you're a strong conservative and a
dedicated public servant, ready to fight to protect children from
pornographic content and inappropriate material readily available in school libraries.
It sounds like perhaps he's put you on this board
to go through and potentially root out this material, which
is what people who are opposed to you are afraid
(10:43):
you're going to do. So I ask again, Terry, are
you ready to launch an investigation into what's available in
what libraries and who has access to it.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
I am absolutely ready to do that. I can tell
you with the makeup of the board at this point
in time that it would be shot down that I
doubt that any investigation or any type of movement in
that direction would happen. There's just not a majority of
(11:15):
conservative people on that board, so I don't expect that
it would be able to go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
So you can, and I'm not going to ask, So
you can't unilaterally go in there and say this book's gone,
but you could use your platform to say, let me
tell you what's in this book and where it's available,
and the people in that particular school district could make
a decision on their own as to how much pressure
they're going to put on their local school board and
what can be done about it.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yes, and we can also citizens can put pressure on
the Nebraska Library Commission that we are a public entity,
and there have already been people that are very willing
to come forward and put pressure on the board to
get rid of somebody that doesn't have the same viewpoint
as them. We can have Nebraskans that feel the same
(12:04):
way that I do, come to the meetings and use
their time in the public comments to be able to say, hey,
this is something that I want to be investigated. This
is something that concerns me that I see as very
harmful to our young people. So yeah, Nebraskans need to
get involved. That was something when I was on the
(12:25):
school board, constantly asking people come to meetings, speak up
at the very least, email and let your views be known.
Because we think of ourselves as the silent majority, and
it is way past time to be silent. We need
to be as loud or louder than those that are
(12:45):
opposing us.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Saw an explosion of news stories about this late last
week and thought, wow, they must have packed this till
I saw the quote more than a half dozen people.
What an incredible estimation of a giant crowd. Terry Kinnahams
wantson member of the Nebraska Library Commission. They said that
they're not done opposing you being on this board, so
(13:08):
I'm sure we'll be speaking again. Terry, thank you very
much for your time this morning.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
You got to have a great day.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Scott Voyes Mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven
ten KFAB
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