Sect Ditches School
 
By Fritz Thompson
Albuquerque Journal
 
HILDALE, Utah, and COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — The world did not come to an end. A number of people in these side-by-side border towns believed the apocalypse was at hand late this summer after pronouncements by a polygamous Mormon splinter group. The entire congregation lent credence to the belief by removing hundreds of their children from public schools, presumably to prepare for the end.

But it turns out that the end of the world was not what the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had in mind. The church said reports of an impending apocalypse on Sept. 15 were the invention of the media.

What did happen — the mass withdrawal of fundamentalist children from public schools — will likely reverberate off the sandstone spires in the Utah and Arizona desert for some time to come.

So might questions about who's going to pay — financially and educationally.

Last month, more than 800 children were suddenly withdrawn from schools in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., in the far western corners of those states. About 35 teachers in the two school systems resigned.

The students and teachers left at the behest of Warren Jeffs, self-styled prophet of a Mormon sect and a practicing polygamist, who issued an edict from the pulpit in August, declaring the public schools in the two towns to be repositories of wickedness and evil.

Parents were told to begin home-schooling their children, "so we can instruct them in the religious aspects of life."

All of the departed students and teachers are members of the local Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a 5,000-member-plus splinter sect from the Mormon church.

"I came back for the first day of school and more than half of the students were gone," said Principal Max Tolman of Phelps Elementary School in Hildale. "That same day — August 31 — most of my teachers resigned, too."

If the powers that be wanted to keep this desert pocket of illegal polygamy low profile, the massive withdrawal did not help advance their plan.

Polygamy is against the law and was long ago denounced by the mainstream Mormon church. And, to the fundamentalists' chagrin, the school situation brought a lot of unwanted attention to their multiple marriages.

The news media showed up, attracted in part by a loosely knit rumor that many people in the two towns believed the end of the world was imminent.

Education concerns

Enrollment at Phelps Elementary, the only public school in Hildale, went from 220 students last year to 92 this year. The number of teachers fell from about 15 to four.

At the Colorado City school, which runs from elementary level through high school, Superintendent Alvin Barlow said enrollment went from "a little over 1,000" last year to 350 this year. Staffing fell from 185 to 98.

In Colorado City high school classes alone, enrollment went from 238 to 29. Whole buildings have been closed, and one low-slung brick structure appeared deserted.

"Funding from the state is based on last year's enrollment," said Kolene Granger of Saint George, superintendent of schools in Washington County, Utah. "We won't be in financial trouble this school year, but next year is a different story. What we do depends on the longevity of this (church) decision."

In Colorado City, on the Arizona side, Barlow, a fundamentalist church member who talked sympathetically about the home-school notion, said the Arizona appropriation of $2,600 for each student will stay the same no matter the enrollment.

Home-schooling is legal in Utah and Arizona, but beyond that franchise lies a deeper question.

Barlow said home-schooling "speaks to the heritage of family and children."

But retired teacher and lifelong Colorado City resident Cyril Bradshaw believes, "Home-schooling requires a lot of one-on-one. It's difficult to do that if you have 16 kids in the house.

Bradshaw said he never bought Jeffs' message about the evils of public schools — which is one reason Bradshaw has been branded an apostate — or dissident deserter — by the fundamentalist church.

A number of nonchurch members, like Bradshaw, expressed fear that religious fanaticism will create the fodder for illiteracy and ignorance.

"With such large families, I question whether we could do a good job in home-schools," said Bradshaw. "Knowing how to teach is a gift from God, but many people here don't have the background material and the broad knowledge to teach everything."

"I know some 8- and 10-year-old home-schooled children here who are illiterate," said Colorado City resident and former fundamentalist church member Lenore Holm.

Neither Arizona nor Utah requires testing of home-school students for progress or scholastic attainment. Arizona passed such a law in 1993 but repealed it in 1995.

Meanwhile, high school science teacher Deloy Bateman said children still attending public school "are getting along smoother than before."

In Hildale, Phelps Elementary principal Tolman said, "It's like a brand new school — they are very happy students. Education is the highest priority for them."

Wall of silence

The only people around town who said anything about the school situation were people who have been "defellowshipped" (thrown out) of the fundamentalist church, run by Jeffs and a small group of like-minded polygamists.

"They own everybody here," said Holm, who was tossed after she complained that the splinter church kidnapped two of her 13 children and turned their minds against her.

People who have been thrown out said the church works diligently "to force you out of town, too."

"They can take away your husband, your wife, your house, your children," Holm said.

Fundamentalist church members have been expressly forbidden from speaking to apostates, a ban that can extend to immediate family members and presumably to the news media.

Questions about the church, its people and their communities are met with short, noncommittal answers or long silences.

Colorado City Mayor Dan Barlow — a member of the fundamentalist church and brother of school Superintendent Alvin Barlow and former police chief Sam Barlow — is not forthcoming during an interview cut short.

Surprised in his office at City Hall, Dan Barlow declined to answer questions about the church — "That's a question for the attorney" — or the school situation — "That's a question for the superintendent."

As for how people here make a living, Barlow said people here are involved in "all the businesses you would expect to find in any other place." He doesn't pin the economy to anything in particular.

The Salt Lake Tribune, in an investigative report in 1998, said more than a third of the residents of the two towns were on welfare. Both ranked high in reliance on Medicaid and use of food stamps. Hildale received more than $400,000 in government housing grants to refurbish 19 homes on church-owned lands. It ranked dead last in Utah for the amount of income taxes ($651 annually) per tax filer.

Elsewhere in Utah, citizens wondered why polygamists were getting public assistance. State officials said they could not discriminate on the basis of religion.

One apostate resident said, "I'll tell you how they make a living: six wives, for example — two stay home and the other four are out bringing home a paycheck."

Multiple matrimony

In advocating multiple wives, the fundamentalist church said the practice is not a sexual matter — it's a duty to promote procreation.

An estimated 85 percent of the families in Hildale-Colorado City are polygamists, Bateman said.

One man, say, with four wives and 20 children does not raise eyebrows here.

Warren Jeffs, who is said to have 60 wives, is heir apparent to his reportedly infirm, 90-year-old father, Rulon Jeffs. Rulon Jeffs is allegedly married to 100 women.

The Jeffs recently moved here from a palatial compound at Salt Lake City.

Calls to five listed telephone numbers at four different addresses for Rulon Jeffs in Hildale each elicited a terse statement from someone answering the phone, saying the Jeffs are not now available and not likely to ever be.

Requests for an interview were refused. Callers are referred to attorney Scott Berry in Salt Lake City, who was reported to be vacationing in Europe. A secretary said Berry is the only person authorized to speak for the Jeffs.

On or about Sept. 15, a rumor circulated in southern Utah saying Hildale and Colorado City would soon rise and carry the righteous to the heavens while fire rained death and destruction on the apostates and nonbelievers below. After the area had been so cleansed, the righteous would return and again occupy the land.

The hierarchy of the Jeffs' sect, in a rare public response earlier this month, said to the news media through their attorney that the rumor was bogus and largely an invention of the media.

Sept. 15 dawned with a bright desert sky in Hildale and Colorado City, and it was business as usual: People shopped for groceries, boys rode bikes and a work crew paved a street.

Still, a degree of fear and apprehension lies beneath the surface of life here.

Living on the edge

Science teacher Bateman agreed to meet a reporter only off school grounds. He gave instructions about where to park and warned about being followed by town police.

The police never showed up but Bateman did, and he provided a lunch-hour tour of town, including a new house he is building himself. He is no longer a member of the fundamentalist church, but he has two wives and 17 children. His new house has 18 bathrooms.

He is crossways with the church primarily because his three eldest children married into the church. Now they are basically forbidden from contact with him. "I'm allowed to visit with them for five minutes a week," he said. "I can't go into their house because I'm judged so wicked that they would have to bless the house again."

Bateman said he's not talking out a grudge, "it's just that I want to speak to my children."

"The religious leaders here are fanatical," he said, "but the rest (of the church members) are fine people."

For a small town, the houses here are stylishly huge, which seems at odds with the reports on welfare payments. Some homes could be mistaken for small hotels. Construction seems never-ending.

"Marry another wife, have another child, add another wing," Bateman said.

Without exception, every woman in town wears an ankle-length skirt, every man wears a long-sleeved shirt, buttoned at the cuff and the neck.

Marriages are arranged and usually involve teen-age girls and middle-aged men, who may already have other wives. The first marriage is legal, all others are "spiritual" and recognized only by the fundamentalist church.

In addition to being thrown out of the church, Holm said, she was "asked to move far away — far, far away."

She spoke from a modestly large house on a residential street in Colorado City. Six young children, including an infant, played or napped in the living room while she told of her life during the past six months.

She has 13 children. She says her 16-year-old daughter was lured away from home by Warren Jeffs himself, or a follower; likewise her 18-year-old son.

"I didn't hear from her until I talked to her on the telephone at 10:30 that night. She was talking to me like she was righteous and I was wicked," Holm said.

"I went to Warren's house and waited outside for an hour. Nephi Jeffs met me at the garage door and said, 'She'll be staying with us now.' I told him she was underage and I wanted her home. They called my husband and asked him, 'Is you wife an apostate?'

"They (church elders) kicked my husband off a job he had with his cousin. They told us to leave town. I told them we don't have any place to go. They got a moving van and we asked them where we were supposed to go, and they said, we'll go where we land." She said the threat never came to pass.

"My daughter was very attached to these children," she said. "It's been very hard on them, they miss her a lot. I don't know where she is.

"I have lived here all my life, but sometimes I just wish we could move away. I just wish we could make some changes and not allow Warren to be so much in control."
 
abqjournal.com
Originally published September 24, 2000
 
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