One year ago this month Crane made national headlines for a reported sexually transmitted disease outbreak.
It came after the Crane ISD superintendent sent out a letter warning parents of a Chlamydia epidemic.
“We’re just a small town,” Viktorija Rodriguez says while standing on her doorstep on a spring afternoon in Crane.
“…and when things happen, it just blows up.”
In May 2015, Crane ISD superintendent, Jim Rumage, wrote a warning letter to parents about a potential Chlamydia epidemic.
The news broke, and spread faster than the reported outbreak itself..
“I just said there could be an outbreak, I don’t even remember what all was in the letter,” Rumage says one year later.
Rumage sat down with Local 2’s Tyler Thomason to discuss the letter for the first time.
He says he sent the letter as a proactive measure following word from local health officials that several people had been “tested” for Chlamydia. The number of actual cases have been wild guesses ever since.
“We really didn’t have a problem,” Rumage says.
“We just had some people that convinced me that I needed to write a letter.”
The reported outbreak shined a national spotlight on sex education in this conservative county’s classrooms. Rumage didn’t offer much detail on how it’s changed in the past 12 months.
“It was abstinence then, and it’s abstinence now,” Rumage says.
“Maybe a little more intense than it used to be.”
Rumage says the district brings people in from out of town to teach the abstinence curriculum at the high school.
Rodriguez graduated from Crane High School four years ago. She remains a local resident and mom to two children after also graduating from Odessa College.
“I got pregnant in high school. The school wasn’t going to stop me,” Rodriguez says.
“Honestly, it’s really up to the parents because I didn’t get pregnant in school.”
Reported cases of Chlamydia in Crane county have been up and down in recent years: 12 were reported in 2014, 17 in 2013 and 8 in 20-12, according to the Texas State Health Department. Stats for 2015 will not be made available until later this year.
Rodriguez agrees with the school district’s abstinence approach but would like to see a more diversified effort.
“Hold strong on abstinence, but after that follow through with use protection, talk to someone you’re comfortable with,” Rodriguez says.
Rumage explains further why Crane ISD prefers an abstinent effort:
“If you can get children to understand that if they will refrain from any kind of sexual contact than that they cannot get any kind of a disease… That’s what the town wants and that’s what we’re going to do.”
In the aftermath since the STD story broke, Rumage tells me his job has been threatened, and he regrets ever sending out the letter.
However, it hasn’t stopped the district from sticking to a Sex Ed plan that, it feels, passes the test.
“Course, some people blame me,” Rumage says.
“And, I was just trying to do what I thought was best for kids.”
(Information from YourBasin.com)
