RIFLE, Colo. — An archway sign on a street leading to Rifle High School says it’s the “Home of the Bears.” Before Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) dropped out around 2003, it was also her home.
But you’d never know it.
Nothing at the school notes that a sitting member of Congress, then named Lauren Roberts, is a former student. Boebert has never given a commencement address or spoken to a class.
From vaping and groping her date in a Denver theater to seemingly incessant family drama to her brand of fire-breathing performative MAGA politics, Boebert, to many, isn’t the type of person to brag about — even as she’s become one of the mostrecognizablelawmakers in America.
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And that’s not to mention her carpetbagging, moving from Colorado’s 3rd congressional district in the western part of the state, where Rifle High School is located, to the deeply conservative 4th district in the east. She faces a primary election June 25.
To ask why Rifle High School doesn’t call attention to Boebert, its most famous former student, Raw Story reached out to school district superintendent Heather Grumley, Rifle High School principal Kyle Mickelson, and each member of the school board — Tony May, Britton Fletchall, Cassie Haskell, Fathom Jensen, and Chance Jenkins.
None of those people in positions of authority responded, leaving it to communication director Theresa Hamilton, who confirmed that the district has done nothing to acknowledge its most famous former student.
She gave a perfunctory answer when asked how the district regards Boebert.
“I think that we are proud of all of our graduates,” she said.
Reminded that Boebert is not a graduate, Hamilton said the district is proud of all of its students.
Boebert did not respond to Raw Story’s interview request.
In interviews leading up to her first term in Congress in 2021 and in her 2022 book “My American Life,” Boebert has given conflicting accounts of her high school years, including when she dropped out, the reason she dropped out, and how she felt about being a student.
Before reaching high school age, Boebert’s family moved three hours west from Denver to Rifle. Boebert said in her book, “I liked my new school and teachers, and I was eager to get involved in cheerleading.”
Later in the book, she says, “By the time I was a senior, at age eighteen, I didn’t care about a diploma, and I had zero interest in going to college.”
It's unclear, however, how long Boebert was a high school senior, if at all.
Boebert appears among Class of 2005 portraits and photos of the cheerleading team in the 2001-02 and 2002-03 Rifle High School yearbooks. But she doesn’t appear at all in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 yearbooks.
Boebert’s first child, Tyler, was born in March 2005, meaning she got pregnant at age 17 around what would have been the end of her junior year of high school.
In a 2020 interview with the Durango Herald, Boebert explained dropping out by saying, “I was a brand-new mom, and I had to make hard decisions on successfully raising my child, or getting to high school biology class. And I chose to take care of my child. … I was a great student. I had great grades. I loved being there, but I was starting my family and had different priorities.”
In her book, however, Boebert writes that a job at McDonald’s is why she dropped out of high school. She said she was offered a manager job that paid $40,000 a year.
“The choice between a high school geography class and a high-paying job, one of that would put food on the table, was an easy one,” she wrote. “I dropped out of high school and took the job.”
Later in the book, she writes, “Yes, I regrettably dropped out of high school—to work and help Mom put food on the table—but it doesn’t alter my opinion that American children should receive the highest quality education available anywhere in the world.”
Boebert says in the book that four months after she met her ex-husband, Jayson, she went to Las Vegas to get married but was told she had to be 17. She turned 17 in December of what would have been her junior year of high school.
Raw Story reached out to 34 people who were Rifle students at the same time as Boebert. Three responded.
“I'm sorry, I have nothing positive to say about Lauren then,” one said. Told that any comments, positive or negative, would be of interest, the person declined an interview.
Another expressed willingness to do an interview and then didn’t respond to follow-up emails. Still another person said she didn’t personally know Boebert in high school and declined to comment.
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From Facebook and Instagram posts by Boebert, it appears that at least two of her sons attended school within the Rifle public school district. When investigating the case that led to Tyler Boebert’s arrest in late February on seven charges, including two felonies, related to thefts in Rifle, police asked Mickelson, the Rifle High School principal, to help identify alleged accomplices.
Boebert offers little detail in her book about Rifle High School other than enthusiasm for classmates with a car who could take her off campus for lunch at McDonald’s rather than a high school cafeteria.
She writes that her mother was “devastated” that she dropped out.
“She, too, was a high school dropout and didn’t want me to repeat her mistakes,” Boebert explained. “She did everything she could to emphasize the importance of education as I grew up, and she felt like she failed.”
Boebert has said she earned a General Equivalency Diploma (GED), noting it in a social media post in which she insulted the intelligence and eloquence of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Boebert wrote, “Whoever paid for her education wasted their money.”
