August started off with people enduring record-level heat to make the petitions to recall Terri Cunningham-Swanson available for signature. Meanwhile, Terri was getting more than famous. She was getting infamous. Infamous enough to be invited to speak to fellow hypocrites and conspiracy theorists!
Terri’s Word Salad
Terri was booked for various speaking engagements, such as “Protect Our Kids” (presented by Moms for Liberty and Sarpy Conservatives) and the Nebraska Republican State Central Committee.
Things seemed tame at the August 14, 2023 board meeting, though one parent reached out to Terri after to discuss her concerns about bullying and racism in schools.
We contacted the parent who sent that email and learned Terri never responded to her. However, Terri’s husband and followers derided and bullied her over the issue. Duane Swanson in particular told this parent that she “needed to recant” what she had said, because Terri claimed she had been locked out of her school email account.
He continued to push the parent to take back her statement that Terri had not responded to her email even though it was true. This entire drama was pointless, when all Terri had to do was respond to the parent after regaining access to her email.
It’s pretty gross to us to hear that some old man was hounding a young mom about something she said, which was true—Terri hadn’t responded to her email. However, we’ve noticed a tendency with these people to target teenagers and women in their crusade to control how everyone lives and thinks.
Meanwhile, Terri emailed herself something that gives all of us deeper insight into what she believes is going on in public schools:
Since she was due to speak at the Nebraska Republican State Central Committee, this may have been her speech or at least an early draft of it.
While all of this was going on, the new school year was starting. Parents and students had registration to attend and forms to complete. This should have included the permission form that would give them access to the as-of-yet nonexistent restricted section of the library. Form 6300B wasn’t provided to parents at registration, however.
As one parent noted to us, “The fact I had to go ask for the permission slip to sign at registration was bullshit. And then they didn’t have the books in the library for them to check out till November. But why?”
While parents and students geared up for the school year, Terri appeared in a podcast interview with Mark and Amber Archer. If you don’t know them, they’re the creators of Terri’s favorite hyperbolic playbook, The Mind Polluters!
They featured Terri on their podcast where they also showed their complete and utter ignorance of sex versus gender. Terri confirmed that she is anti-transgender. She, of course, doesn’t understand sex is biological (and also far more complex than they are capable of comprehending), while gender is a societal construct.
Terri also expressed her opinions about her fellow board members and the high school media specialist (librarian) on the podcast, none of which was flattering.
After that, Terri did the thing any reasonable person would do: she or someone on her behalf left horrible reviews on two local businesses in retaliation for their involvement in the recall petition process. She later claimed her social media accounts had been cloned on Twitter. Yet one of Derek Winterstien’s cohorts followed her example—or perhaps they planned it together—and did the same.
KB0KYT is a ham radio handle and if you Google it, you can find the cretin it’s assigned to. You will also find that Derek Winterstien is or was a member of the Plattsmouth Amateur Radio Club. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots, especially when you’re dealing with the Winterstiens.
As one parent remarked when she contacted us regarding this story, “Funny thing was she had all this time to speak at a GOP meeting and on podcasts, but not to attend workshops and educational events to better herself as a board member.”
Of course, Terri also found time to put a dog whistle of a video out there, telling people not to leave bad reviews on local businesses.
In response to the hateful reviews Terri, or someone purporting to be Terri, and the Winterstien minion left on the two local businesses, community members left reviews on her school board Facebook page. Terri recently deleted that page, but we have the screenshots that show her response to one of these reviews—that is, she proceeded to incite an actual witch hunt against a community member who is non-Christian.
Okay, so Terri doesn’t want us to leave bad reviews on local businesses who are involved in the recall, but she wants the community to leave nasty comments about a person who disagrees with her? She wants to encourage religious intolerance and bullying?
Against the backdrop of all of this community turmoil, Ryan turned the petitions in to the Cass County Election Commission on August 24, 2023 for the signatures to be verified. The results came back quickly: 749 signatures turned in, of which 625 were valid. Terri was ecstatic!
So, after saving children from public school teachers, what would Terri do to celebrate?
March in the Plattsmouth Harvest Festival with “Don’t Lose Your Innocence” signs!
Not only did Terri give people big ick energy with her new sugar daddy, Robert Clements, and by putting her own grandchildren to work, but her followers were also vocal about boycotting a certain student fundraiser at the festival. Why? Because those teenagers and their parents were involved in the recall.
It was just another display of how Terri and her followers truly felt about the town of Plattsmouth, a town that—she had admitted time and again—about which she knew nothing. Yet here she was, doing her best to tear it apart… and succeeding.
