A Pennsylvania school board member is stepping down from her duties after an online post she made – purportedly about gardening – was misinterpreted by her community as attacking the right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
On Sept. 10, the same day Kirk was killed while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, Homer-Center School District Board member Misty Hunt posted a message on social media: “One down, hundreds to go,” she wrote, according to a report Tuesday from The Guardian.
Kirk’s online post immediately devolved into accusations that she was celebrating Kirk’s killing, complaints that reached the school board, which in turn announced that an investigation into Hunt had been launched.
In subsequent posts, however, Hunt said that the entire fiasco had been a misunderstanding, and that she had meant for her initial online post to be accompanied by a video of milkweed seed pods flying out of her vehicle’s window. Using what she described as her “old iPhone” to upload her online post, Hunt blamed the video not being uploaded alongside her caption on being “in the abc roads near the power plant,” a location with presumably poor cell service.
“I have always been outspoken. And I own my BS. I am a big fan of free speech and I enact it quite often. But this is not one of them,” Hunt wrote in a subsequent social media post.
“It was only about butterflies and creating a space for them. The end. Gardening is my life. And I tried to share it with all of you. I won’t make that mistake again. My heart goes out to the Kirk family. No one should grow up without a parent. So for the gross misunderstanding – I apologize to all of you.”
Despite Hunt’s explanation, the school board’s Sept. 18 meeting drew a significantly larger crowd than usual, forcing officials to move the meeting’s location to a school gymnasium, where attendees voiced both outrage at and support for Hunt.
Hunt ultimately was removed from the school board’s negotiations committee according to The Guardian, and decided to step down from her duties for the immediate future.
