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Crime: Victims uncooperative with investigators School sex scandal leaves Vian divided
By Julie Bisbee
Staff Writer
THE OKLAHOMAN
Sunday, May 18, 2008
VIAN — There's hardly a stranger in Vian. Folks wave to each other on county roads that crisscross the hilly countryside. People cheer for each others' kids from T-ball through high school.
It's a quiet town set between the hills of western Sequoyah County. But in the wake of the resignation of two teachers, both Vian High School graduates, the town is split.
Jennifer Cowart, 35 and Tracy Ann Boshers, 34, are under investigation for alleged inappropriate relationships with male students at the high school. They resigned just before termination hearings were to proceed by the school district. The district, which was prepared to air the results of its investigation, accepted the resignations to avoid ongoing litigation, Superintendent Lawrence Barnes said.
Vian Police Chief Danny Hoover began a sexual battery investigation. No arrests have been made and no charges have been filed.
Earlier this month, the case was reviewed by the Sequoyah County district attorney's office and sent back to Hoover for more investigation. Hoover has since turned the investigation over to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.
'All that we know is just hearsay'
To some, the allegations against the former teachers carry weight and illustrate what they say is a longstanding practice of female teachers having relationships with boys who are juniors and seniors in high school.
Others say the allegations are just a way to damage the careers of teachers who have been dedicated to the school district for years.
Attorneys for both women did not return calls seeking comment.
The issue has the town 1,500 picking sides.
"This has split up our community forever," said Joe Simon, who has two sons in school and owns Vian's only hardware store. "We didn't get to have the hearing. If we would have, maybe we would know the facts. Now all that we know is just hearsay. This is a tight community, and it has been pretty tough on us."
Not many locals want to talk publicly about the allegations that two former high school teachers had relationships with high school boys.
An affidavit for a search warrant, filed by Hoover in April, has witnesses saying that Boshers sent sexual text messages to cell phones of high school boys. One boy told police that Boshers performed oral sex on him at the school and in her vehicle.
"I knew that she had sex with another student, so why not me," the former Vian student told police. "She put off the vibes. I hit her up about it, and she did it."
Few of the boys are speaking with police about suspected relationships with Boshers. During his investigation, Hoover requested copies of Boshers's phone records and text messages.
Many students and former students haven't cooperated with the police investigation of Boshers, a popular teacher who once coached a decorated cheerleading squad and is the daughter of the school district's business manager.
One mother's quest
When Cara Mosby's son seemed distraught about a relationship during his junior year of high school, she reassured him. When she realized he was upset about a relationship he said he was having with a married teacher at school, she took a different course.
"I had to sit him down at the kitchen table and tell him why he couldn't be in love with this teacher," she said. "I told him to take care of it, and if he wouldn't I would."
In 2005, after she found a poem that had been put in her son's locker and signed by two female teachers, Mosby went to the school.
In a November 2005 letter to former Vian High School principal Bob Thomas, Mosby said that her son "told me of previous sexually related advances and comments made to him. .... I am seriously concerned."
Mosby said nothing seemed to be done to address her concerns.
Superintendent Barnes said he didn't see a copy of the letter until recently and that any disciplinary action that might have come from the 2005 letter would be confidential.
Barnes said he's certain Thomas took disciplinary action.
"We weren't able to substantiate anything at that time," Barnes said. "The difference this time around is that some of the kids are stepping forward. At the time the letter was received, the boys weren't talking."
Mosby said she took her concerns to the police department as well, and nothing was done.
"They just acted like it was OK," Mosby said. "It was like everybody knew about this, and nobody wanted to talk about it."
Since then, Hoover has been hired as chief. The previous police chief, Jeremy Floyd, has been arrested on complaints of theft and embezzlement.
Meanwhile, Mosby took action to protect her son.
"For a year, I made my son stay in the truck with me until two minutes before school started, then he could go inside," said Mosby. "I'd be here as soon as school got out. He didn't have time to be messing around or doing something he shouldn't have been."
For Mosby, it was a relief when her son graduated, but what happened haunted her.
"I was so relieved he wouldn't have to go back there," she said. "I put it in God's hands, but I felt bad. I knew there would be other students that might have to go through something like this."
Is it legal?
In Vian, two former teachers are accused of having inappropriate relationships with students. At this point in the investigation, it is believed that all of the possible victims were 16 or older.
In Oklahoma, the age of consent is 16. The Vian Police Department investigated complaints of sexual battery against the teachers.
A charge of sexual battery is used when a person in authority or a supervisor touches or feels someone in a lewd manner, according to state statute.

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