Bloomington attorney Carl Lamb made several political statements that were considered off-script at Edgewood High School's Veterans Day program last Friday.
Lamb spoke about his frustration after last Tuesday’s election at losing his bid again to be a Monroe County Judge.
“I get an opportunity to have a stage and be able to vent a little. The one thing that really bothered me this past Tuesday, other than losing, of course for the second time, mind you, I ran in 2020 with President Trump on the top of the ticket. And, hopefully, we'll get our country back in a direction that needs to go,” Lamb said in the speech.
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Lamb continued, “Am I getting get shut down? If I were in a different forum, I couldn't mention Donald Trump's name without basically being assassinated up here on the stage, but I'm in Ellettsville and I'm gonna say it.”
Lamb then resumed his speech about the contributions of area veterans. He noted veterans should be respected for their service to the country.
Parent Erin Fortune got text messages from her son Skyler, a ninth grader at Edgewood. He expressed his discomfort during the speech. Fortune believes political rhetoric does not have a place in public schools.
“The extent that he went off script to talk about his personal election losses, and political philosophies, it was really just very unacceptable,” Fortune said. “I kind of felt like it really exhibited poor judgment. And he was running for a judge. Maybe that has to do with something with why he's consistently not been elected.”
Lamb told Indiana Public Media there was never a set script, and his comments were meant to describe his life experience as a veteran.
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“The response by some people has been just unbelievable. And they say not to be political, but their responses have been incredibly political,” Lamb said. “It was never my intent to be political in what I was doing in that presentation. I was attempting to put myself out there.”
Richland-Bean Blossom Superintendent Jerry Sanders wrote in an email to parents that Lamb was asked to refrain from making further political comments and go back to his planned presentation.
"I spoke with Mr. Lamb after the ceremony and told him that his comments were inappropriate and made the focus of attention on himself instead of the many sacrifices of our veterans and their families," Sanders said in the email. “We are deeply saddened by the behavior of our guest speaker and apologize to anyone upset by his speech.”
