State School chief says Jesus Picture is Out of Place

By JUSTIN D. ANDERSON

DAILY MAIL STAFF

The president of the state Board of Education is troubled that Harrison County school officials are letting a contested picture of Jesus hang in a busy hallway at Bridgeport High School.

However, state education officials are staying out of the issue for now and allowing the Harrison school board decide.

Lowell Johnson, state school board president, said he believes public schools should maintain a secular environment.

"I usually adopt a policy of not trying to subject people to my religion without their consent," he said. "And I think this has something to do with that."

The controversial picture has been hanging outside the principal's office for about 40 years -- pretty much ever since the school was built in the mid-1960s.

The debate over the picture began a decade ago when Harold Sklar, a Bridgeport resident and lawyer with the FBI in Clarksburg, quietly asked former Harrison school administrators to take it down.