Who You Are When Everyone's Looking

     It has been said that integrity is “who you are when no one is looking.” But integrity is also who you are when everyone is looking, even if they’re not paying attention.

     Recently, our small community has had a scandalous event. The mother of one of the boys in my daughter’s 8th grade class was recently censured by the school board for her conduct at a junior high basketball game. The school board’s action was to ban her from athletic events until the end of this school year. That may not be a big deal in your community. But in ours, it was the topic of debate for weeks. This woman is from a well known family and has had other “run-ins” with school and game officials. She has also caused controversy with people in the community at large. After a junior high baseball game this past season, she started an argument with the publisher of a local newspaper over what she believed was unfair coverage of her son’s team. All of that is background for my thoughts on integrity.

     After the school board met and decided how to deal with this mother’s behavior, the local news media began reporting the story. I don’t want to use the woman’s name, so I have deleted it in the following copy, which was read on the air of our local radio station and appeared in most of our local newspapers:

"A major portion of last night’s meeting dealt with a parental disciplinary matter. According to accounts presented to the Board, [mother’s name], the mother of an 8th grade boys basketball player, entered the locker room while the team was inside. The Board also discussed other examples of inappropriate behavior by [mother’s name] on several occasions. A variety of disciplinary ideas were discussed before a motion was approved. By a 5-2 margin, the Board voted to impose a 5 month loss of attendance privileges for all sporting events, effective immediately and ending June 8th. [Mother’s name] will be allowed to attend 8th grade recognition night this Thursday evening, however only for the introduction of players and their parents.”
                    --WNOI News

     Now, as I mentioned before, this woman had a very public argument with the publisher of one of our local weekly newspapers. I don’t want to embarrass him, so we’ll call him Mr. Smith. No wait, let’s call him Mr. Jones. Anyway, Mr. Jones was faced with a dilemma. Being a man of faith in Christ, he knew that forgiveness and humility should be his attitude. He also knew that his actions would be noticed by some in the community. He could report the action, like all the other media outlets had done, by putting it on the front page and making a public spectacle out of the mother. It was local news, and everyone was talking about it. By not mentioning it in his paper, it would appear that either he didn’t know about it, or he thought it was unimportant. But he also knew that by reporting it as everyone else had done, he would further embitter her and embarrass her family even more, including her kids. So, what should he do?

     Mr. Jones is a casual acquaintance of mine, as are most people in our rather small community. I have always been friendly with him and I subscribe to his paper, and while I don’t consider him an “enemy,” we’re not really “friends” either. So please don’t think I’m just building up a crony. But Mr. Jones demonstrated what I consider to be a noteworthy act of integrity. He reported the story, left the mother’s name out, and printed it in that week’s edition. No fanfare, no big deal. Just the fact’s, Ma’am.

     It was an act that probably went unnoticed by most in the community. But "Mr. Jones"—I noticed. I appreciate the integrity you exhibited. And in spite of what you might think, or what others may have said, I thank you for the role model you are to me and especially my kids. I only hope that I can teach them the same level of integrity through my actions.