A mother is defending the “man pageant” in which scantily clad male students at Hazard High School in Kentucky were seen giving lap dances to school staff — including the principal, who is also the city’s mayor — at a recent school assembly. “People don’t know how to keep their mouths shut,” the mom said, seemingly vexed over the story making its way to the news.
“It has been taken completely out of context,” mom Hollie Layne told WLEX-TV. “There are only photos being shown on the internet, no videos. The photos don’t show the teachers pushing the children off of them.”
Layne, whose son and his friends reportedly participated in the homecoming event at Hazard High School, added that pushing the limits and embarrassing teachers was part of the fun.
“If everybody is perfect then I would say, ‘Yeah, maybe we do need to rethink something,'” Layne said. “But until somebody can prove that something is going on here other than just homecoming week and teenagers being teenagers then I will support my kids.”
In a video clip posted by WHAS-TV, which appears to be part of the same interview with Layne, the mother added that “None of my children have been hurt. None of the teachers have been hurt.”
“It’s embarrassing to them that this has to happen at their school, because people don’t know how to keep their mouths shut,” Layne said.
The photos from the event in question appear to show scantily clad male teenagers — some appearing to be dressed in drag — giving lap dances to staff members, one of whom was Donald “Happy” Mobelini, the principal of the high school, as well as the mayor of Hazard, Kentucky.
“Happy is one of the best people there are. He would do anything to help anybody,” Layne told WKYT. The report added that Layne is the “mother of one of the students pictured.”
Hazard Independent Schools Superintendent Sondra Combs said Wednesday that “appropriate disciplinary action has been taken” after an investigation into controversial photos taken at Hazard High School, reported the Louisville Courier-Journal.
“We are not allowed to disclose any further information regarding the specifics of the discipline,” the superintendent said, and clarified that students were the ones behind the “homecoming festivities” that led to the controversial photos.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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