Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 27, 1990 TAG: 9005270195
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER SOUTHWEST BUREAU
DATELINE: TAZEWELL LENGTH: Medium
At least that is what he says he was told more than a month ago, when he was reassigned as an instructor at the county's vocational-technical school. But Nicholson said he believes his 7:15 a.m. prayer meetings with teachers and other school employees were the real reason.
That same suspicion led 17 pastors to form the Tazewell County Evangelical Association in early May. The group's original purpose was to push for an investigation into school employee shifts, especially in Nicholson's case.
Now, it has a broader mission, according to its president, First Church of God Pastor William McCollian: "To work as a body to bring about some changes in this county that we as Christians feel ought to be made."
Its members have not been specific about what those other changes should be, but they did take their case to the Tazewell County Board of Supervisors at its May 14 meeting.
Earlier, the group had asked the School Board to appoint an independent investigator to look into recent personnel transfers and report back confidentially. The board said no. So the association took the matter to the supervisors, who appoint the School Board members.
"It appeared to us that the School Board just turned a deaf ear to us," Trinity Presbyterian Church Pastor Henry E. Johnson told the supervisors. "We are not asking for action to be taken against anyone. We are merely saying that Tazewell County has a problem and the air needs to be cleared."
If Nicholson's demotion stemmed from his offering prayers on public property before school started, Johnson maintained, "this is an ominous thing . . . because we need biblical morality."
Both Johnson and McCollian have been careful to say that they do not know this to be a fact, and school officials decline comment since it is a personnel matter. In any case, McCollian has said, the Nicholson matter was just the catalyst in creating the evangelical association, which has a larger purpose now.
The delegation found a sympathetic listener in Supervisor Paul D. Crawford, who moved that the governing body write the School Board to ask for the investigation. The board voted instead for Don Dunford's substitute motion: to have two supervisors study the matter and report back privately to the others.
Crawford and Jack E. Reasor Jr. will be the supervisors making the investigation. But Crawford later told the delegation not to expect results too quickly. He said he wants to wait until he has made his School Board appointment scheduled for June, and that he would seek someone more in tune with the association's views.
"I think the decision on prayer in school has been made by the Supreme Court," he told his fellow supervisors. "Not that I agree with it, but it has been made and we must abide by it until someone comes along with sense enough to change it."
Nicholson said school officials told him the reason for his transfer was insubordination over whether he and another teacher should be allowed to make a trip, not because of the prayer sessions 45 minutes before classes started. He had started the sessions last year and said other employees at the school had asked him to continue them this year.
He has worked in Tazewell County schools for the past 10 years, having come from Jackson County, Tenn., where he was a school principal. He had been principal at Tazewell Middle School for less than two years.
"Well, I'm a Christian, and very devout, I guess," he said when asked by a reporter to describe his religious orientation.
He said he is willing to let his situation sort itself out. "My faith says that I can wait it out and let the Lord handle it one way or the other," he said.
by CNB