Roy Exum
We are hardly into the New Year – not even three weeks – and today we’ll induct the first members of the 2015 Class into my personal Hall of Fame. Actually we’ll have two inductees, an unlikely pair who have almost certainly never met one another but, as is most often the case, have just proven they are joined at the very heart of humanity.
Our first winner – only because girls still come first in our enshrinements – is 18-year-old Kristen Layne of White House, Tenn., which is about 20 miles north of Nashville in Sumner County.
Not long ago, Kristen, who admittedly is a BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) offered the prom dress she wore as a junior on Facebook and was viciously attacked by a pair of cyber-bullies who posted some awful things about her looks.
Our other winner is Fletcher Sanders, a 25-year-old “shoe salesman” from Baton Rouge, La. Fletcher did a friend a favor who is an LSU football player. He put the gloves and the cleats worn by the friend in this year’s epic game against Ole Miss on eBay and sold them for reportedly $100. This, of course, is against NCAA rules.
The campus cops came down hard on Fletcher, with one flexing his wanna-be muscle by telling Fletcher he would put him in jail unless he identified the player. That’s when our newest hero told the cop, “Do what you have to do,” the Baton Rouge Advocate quoted from the police report. “I am not going to be responsible for ruining someone’s career.”
Let’s go back to Kristen for a moment. She posted pictures of her wearing last year’s prom dress on Facebook on “For Sale in Sumner County” and suddenly two men were bashing her. “I was trying to sell my prom dress, and these two men were just saying some very hateful things, just telling me I was fat and that I wasn't beautiful," she said.
The insults back-fired. Almost as fast as the slurs were made, others in Sumner County posted such comments as “It's obvious this woman is beautiful, inside and out," Another wrote that the dress "looks absolutely stunning."
Does it surprise you that suddenly she had 400 “likes” and counting? And how is this for Kristen’s reaction: "I don't know how to say thank you to people and accept the compliments because it doesn't happen a lot."
Total strangers were applauding Kristen’s pluck. Her idea was to sell the dress for $350. “It made me feel like a princess and I want whoever buys it to feel beautiful,” so she answered her bullies. “Can you please stop with the comments? Sorry I am not pleasing to your eye.”
Her dad said the incident will prove positive. “I really think it will,” said Jason Layne. “She stands up for herself. Life is not a bed of roses … sometimes it is hard.”
But …. whoa! … what is this? People in Sumner County, along with total strangers, have now donated over $2,000 for Kristen to buy a dress for her senior prom and Kristen is almost speechless, saying she hopes other girls realize their own worth. “Don’t let anybody break you down,” she said with a grin.
Back to Baton Rouge. The LSU campus police, hot on the trail of the eBay football trinkets, arrested Fletcher Sanders and booked him on counts of ‘principle to theft’ and ‘possession of stolen things.’ He was released after posting a $3,000 bail. His lawyer is calling the whole thing a matter of misunderstanding and the LSU campus cops are being roundly hooted.
Baton Rouge’s Jerome Gardiner commented, “In the scheme of things, world economic collapse, creeping socialism, ISIS, terrorism everywhere, and now this! This is too much for me to bear. You have sent me over the cliff with this underwhelming case of the NCAA regulatory police. Oh my, what shall we do?” while another, Neal Boyd, quipped, “Way ahead of you … I just packed the boat and I am sailing to Canada.”
But for millions of Americans, they recognize the character of Fletcher Sanders who didn’t rat out his buddy. The public reaction has been priceless. One read: “I say kudos! If more people in the world took accountability for their actions and involvement in situations where something could go wrong, instead of yellow-back cowards that think they want to be the man but still not man enough to do it, good people wouldn’t be forced to deal with them.”
My sentiments exactly. Mr. Maestro … roll the drums and sound the bugles!
I present to you the first members of the Class of 2015 in my personal Hall of Fame ….
Je Suis Kristen Layne … Je Suis Fletcher Sanders!
royexum@aol.com
Kristen Layne