Dear Editor,
As lifetime residents of Great Bend, my husband and I have been huge supporters of Barton Community College and Cougar athletics. All three of our children have attended Barton and our two sons were both student athletes. We have been to countless basketball games, baseball games and volleyball games and always looked forward to watching Debbie Warren’s cheer and dance teams perform! We never could believe our eyes when we watched them and always went home wondering to ourselves how they did what they did! It was like being at a major college event watching basketball games. The reason for this was Debbie Warren, pure and simple!
Now, after 27 years, it was all swept away as if it was insignificant. As Steve and I sat at the board meeting that Thursday hoping to hear the students being given the opportunity to voice their opinions, they were swept away, only given five minutes to have a spokesperson speak on their behalf. Gina Spilker-Johnson did a magnificent job of voicing not only the concerns of the current students, but the alumni as well. But that was not the most alarming thing, to me, that happened.
As we listened to Ms. Johnson speak, we watched the Barton president, Dr. Carl Heilman, as he sat at the table with the board members. As the other board members listened with respect, Dr. Heilmann only looked up from his laptop a couple of times while typing away to acknowledge the speaker, thus, showing his lack of respect to the activity that was going on. When Ms. Johnson was done talking there were no questions, no response, just on to the next topic. Over 40 students and interested people listened and the president acted as if the students did not matter! What a horrible thought that an administrator of higher education has no interest in the reason he has his job! Once again, Debbie Warren was swept away.
We have had the utmost respect for the faculty at Barton over the years and several are and have been friends. It is obvious to us that the working atmosphere there now is not what it used to be. Faculty members are scared to voice their opinions about controversial situations to the point that they are afraid of losing their jobs. Whatever happened to this country being, “The land of the free and the home of the brave?” Once again, Debbie Warren was swept away.
It’s a shame that a confident, driven and tireless working woman who wasn’t afraid to fight for what she believed in, her student/athletes, was forced to stop doing what she really loved. Isn’t this the type of person we want our children to be influenced by or are we just going to keep sweeping them away? 
Steve and Lynn Kaiser,
Great Bend