Groundbreaking local artist to Ottawa Impact officials: 'I'm more than just gay'

OTTAWA COUNTY — Ruth Crowe recognized the moment.

"If people are telling you, 'Don’t rock the boat,' it’s usually the most opportune time that you should be rocking the boat. Those moments come up in life, where you need to not just rock it, you need to tip it over."

Three months ago, the Allendale native and acclaimed athlete thought she would be returning to her alma mater of Allendale High School in the spring to conduct an art workshop with students. Less than 90 days later, she stepped up to the podium to address a school board controlled by far-right political group Ottawa Impact and asked for the unprecedented.

"I was recently informed that school officials stated that I was not welcome at the school to help with programming for an art workshop — for no other reason except that I am gay. And, as usual with bigotry, irrelevancy is made to seem relevant. ... I would like to now withdraw my name permanently from the Allendale High School Hall of Fame."

A celebrated athlete

Ruth was born and raised in Allendale Township, located on the east side of West Michigan's Ottawa County. At the time, the community only had 2,238 people, per the 1960 Census, and was predominantly white and Christian.

The second-youngest of Ron and Jena Crowe's four children, Ruth grew up in a family that bucked the norms of typical West Michigan.

"They were free spirits," Ruth's older brother, Kevin, said. "I remember my dad painted a 6-foot peace sign on our barn door."

Ruth said it was difficult, at times, growing up in a liberal household in deeply conservative America.

"I’ve dealt with religious severity my whole life," she said. "Growing up in Allendale, we were the black sheep of the neighborhood. I was lucky my parents were liberal. They welcomed everyone into their home. That’s the environment I grew up in. But I grew up in a town where that was not the case."

A gifted athlete, Ruth discovered a lifelong affinity for softball and was a star pitcher at Allendale High School. In 1977, her team won the state championship — the first in any sport for the school — cementing the players as hometown heroes.

"That’s all I really cared about when I was in school, honestly," she said. "And I represented my school with such pride."

Ruth graduated in 1977 and went on to attend Grand Valley State University for one year before transferring to Texas Woman's University. There, she helped lead the Pioneers softball team to a national championship in 1979.

It was around this time Ruth started to keep a journal, detailing her life experiences, which became numerous and vast.

Her next stop was the U.S. Army, earning the title of platoon honor graduate for both basic training and military police training. She also joined the Army World Class Athlete Program and trained with the national handball team before the U.S. boycotted the 1980 games over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan the previous year.

A legacy of speaking out

Meanwhile, back in Allendale, Ruth's father took issue with happenings in the public school district.

Ron and his wife were one of four couples who complained to the superintendent and school board about biblical teachings as part of the district's curriculum. Two decades earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer in public schools violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

The district refused to change its programming, but Ron Crowe wasn't backing down.

"He was not afraid to take on anybody and he practiced what he preached. He stood up for people," Kevin Crowe said.

Ultimately, the state sued the district in 1985 — successfully — and halted Bible studies in the classrooms.

"My dad didn’t like people being pushed around," Kevin said. "He didn’t like people using their authority to push people around and get their way — and that’s what I see Ottawa County doing. 'We got elected, so we’re going to do this our way.'"

The parallels between then and now are striking. The Allendale Board of Education is majority controlled by members from Ottawa Impact, a political group borne from clashes over the county’s COVID-19 mitigation mandates in 2020. Its founders, Joe Moss and Sylvia Rhodea, were unsuccessful in suing the previous Ottawa County Board of Commissioners and the county's former health officer for the 2021 pre-K-6 mask mandate in schools.

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In response, they targeted seats on the county commission and area school boards in 2022, recruiting like-minded candidates who agreed “traditional Republicans” weren’t enforcing true conservative policies. They were able to topple seven GOP incumbents in the August primary to secure control of the county board.

That's translated into firing the county administrator and replacing him with failed Republican congressional candidate John Gibbs; firing the county's longtime corporate counsel in favor of a firm with personal ties to Moss; eliminating the county's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office; and projecting fierce scrutiny onto the county's health department, its programming and its leader, Adeline Hambley.

Two months into working with the new county board, Hambley filed a lawsuit in circuit court, claiming the Ottawa Impact commissioners have repeatedly attempted to interfere with or limit responsibilities delegated to her through the state.

At the school board level, Ottawa Impact was successful in gaining a majority on the Allendale School Board. The new commissioners quickly followed their county counterparts' lead and, during its first organizational meeting in January, fired the district's longtime legal counsel and hired the same firm as the county.

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They were nearly successful in having the district exit the Michigan Association of School Boards in favor of a controversial organization sponsored by Moms for Liberty, which campaigns against COVID-19 restrictions in schools, any mention of LGBTQ or racial rights, and is a strong proponent of banning books in school libraries. Board members backed off the idea when parents voiced concerns about the organization's stance on special education.

Weeks later, The Sentinel reported the OI school board commissioners colluded months earlier with Moss and Rhodea — who personally attended that first Allendale school board meeting — in orchestrating the changes behind closed doors.

The Michigan Attorney General's Office opened an investigation in January over dozens of complaints about potential violations of the Open Meetings Act by OI county commissioners. On Feb. 16, Attorney General Dana Nessel said the conduct of commissioners, although a “blatant violation of the public’s trust and the tenets of government transparency,” didn't technically violate state law.

Elsewhere in the county, three Ottawa Impact “parent-approved” candidates won seats on the six-member Patmos Library Board. The library is facing closure in mid-2024 after a failed millage renewal following a campaign against LGBTQ books and others with sexual content that were accessible in the library’s young adult section.

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By mid-January, Ruth was informed some members of the school board didn't want her interacting with students, because her artwork was "political in nature."

Ruth wasn't buying it.

"No. It was personal in nature. And it was gay. Nothing political about it. Unless you think it’s political to be gay," she said.

Serving her community

After serving for three years in the U.S. Army, Ruth moved to Los Angeles and trained to be a police officer, graduating first in her class in Peer Review (meaning her classmates picked her as the top recruit they would want to serve alongside); she then began conducting ridealongs with a senior partner.

The year was 1991, and Ruth was on the force when a Black man named Rodney King was savagely beaten by four white LAPD officers. King survived, but fury erupted when the officers were acquitted of criminal charges, resulting in five days of riots across the city.

It was then that Ruth decided to return to her first love: softball, coaching for the next 20 years at the collegiate level.

In 2005, Ruth was fired from Iowa State University after a nine-year stint with the school. She sued for wrongful termination, claiming she complained to faculty and athletic officials about Title IX concerns — what she believed was inequitable compensation for Iowa State coaches in most women's sports and a perceived lack of money to recruit female athletes.

After a more than three-year legal battle, the school settled and was ordered to pay Ruth $425,000 in damages.

By then, Ruth was ready to try something new. She returned to Michigan and started her own business, tapping into her artistic side. Buster's Design Team created custom-designed sports awards printed on unique substrates such as canvas and ceramic tiles.

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"I used action photos of the individual being honored and it made the awards more personal and unique," Ruth said.

A lot happened in that decade, including her mother's passing in 2009 (Ron died in 1999). She was also inducted into two school halls of fame: Texas Woman's University in 2012 and Allendale Public Schools in 2016.

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After 10 years creating art for others, Ruth sold her business in 2015 and decided to become a full-time artist.

"I wanted to create my own art and see if anything would come of it."

She moved back to West Michigan, this time settling in Allegan County's City of the Village of Douglas (yes, that's its real name).

She leveraged her knowledge of Photoshop and materials to produce mixed media that often features vintage photography. She also fostered a strong working relationship with the Saugatuck Center for the Arts, where her artwork is now on display.

Titled "The Journal Project," the exhibit is the culmination of Ruth's life experiences.

"It encompasses the totality of my life and the journals I’ve kept throughout my life and different experiences and difficulties I had in being gay," she said. "So, I’m sure someone found out about that and it became an issue in the original vote."

Pushing back on Ottawa Impact

Ruth is referring to an Allendale School Board vote in November 2022 to approve of her conducting an art workshop in the spring. The district opted to cover the nominal expense attached to the activity, rather than the SCA— but what normally would've been a procedural vote was split 5-2.

"When they told me that … I thought, 'Well who are the two who voted against it?' And they were like, 'Yeah, but you got approved,' and I said, 'You’re missing the point here. I’m an alum and I’m in the hall of fame. It’s not like I’m someone who just got out of jail and they’re trying to decide whether or not to bring me in.' I’m in your hall of fame and two people voted against me. It bothered me then."

Ruth tried to let it go, and still planned on conducting the workshop.

"Then all of a sudden in January when the Ottawa County Commissioners Board started doing all the things they were doing — and then my brother got up and spoke out against those things — that’s when I really started becoming aware of this Ottawa Impact group. And then I found out what their connection was to the Allendale School Board."

Ottawa Impact candidates serving on local boards have attempted to advance a socially conservative agenda to reverse what they claim has been decades of indoctrination of diversity and inclusion ideology, along with unchecked "sexualization of our children." They point to comprehensive sexual education programming in schools and accommodations for LGBTQ youth as "the strategic influence of activists within Michigan government and special interest groups."

On Feb. 9, Moss was a guest on a conservative West Michigan radio show, where he erroneously accused the county's health department of “sponsoring” Grand Valley State University’s Sex Ed Week and "promoting radicalized sexual content." (The department was, in fact, conducting its monthly clinic for sexually transmitted infections testing.)

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It's the fear-mongering, Ruth said, that did it for her.

"These groups use fear. They create such fear in people for speaking out. The fear is the No. 1 thing they use in their favor. You saw what they did to the woman who is the health director. ... They create this bully-like atmosphere and fear for the people who don’t potentially want to be getting the wrath 'if you do this.' That made school officials hesitant having me come into the school. That did it for me. I’m like, OK, I cannot be associated with this school."

Ruth said it's not acceptable to turn her art into political propaganda, but most of all, she's hurt that she isn't seen as human.

"The problem is they don’t see me as a person. They see me as a gay. So they see me as a 'what' instead of a 'who.' This is who I am. I’m an artist. This is what I do. I just happen to be gay. The word 'gay' wouldn’t have ever come out of my mouth at the workshop."

"The Journal Project" exhibit opened at SCA on Friday, Feb. 10. On Monday, Feb. 13, Ruth addressed the school board.

"The irony is not lost on me," she said. "I basically have to create a new piece now. This will be Piece 31."

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What does she think Ottawa Impact officials are afraid of?

"It’s the whole idea of somehow, if you acknowledge it, it spreads. They just want to put their kids in a little bubble and they think that just because you meet a gay person, then you might be gay," she said. "That same fear that they try to put into other people, I think they feel it themselves, for whatever reason. It’s almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. They just have to create that and it just maybe makes them feel better about themselves."

It wasn't easy for Kevin Crowe to watch his sister face bigotry.

"I was understandably upset," he said. "And, in this day and age, to tell her that she’s not welcome because she’s gay ... she’s such a good person. All she wanted to do was teach these kids how to journal and maybe have an outlet for their feelings and emotions that maybe they don’t probably have."

"This brought back a lot of memories," he said. "Our family has taken on Allendale Public Schools for years. This is all deja vu for me."

"I am my father's daughter. That is so true," Ruth said when asked about the family's previous history with the district. "He gave me the gift of speaking out against injustice, and not just my own, but to see how others are impacted also. Our home was always a welcoming place for anyone in Allendale — regardless of skin color or religion or if they were Dutch."

LGBTQ community, allies worried

"It’s really concerning," Kate Leighton-Colburn said about the statements and actions of Ottawa Impact.

The executive director of Out on the Lakeshore, a Holland-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, said she hoped not to see a regression in acceptance of the LGBTQ community.

"At first we were waiting to see if something like this would happen — and it seems like it has," Leighton-Colburn said. "It seems like a lot of thinly veiled homophobia — very thinly — from this group. And I can imagine we’re going to see more obvious forms going forward. Similar to what’s happening with Ruth. Folks like that like to say things like, 'I’m not homophobic. They can live their lives. I’m not saying they can’t live their lives,' but when you try to integrate yourself into society, they freak out."

She says Ottawa Impact and other groups seem to have convictions rooted in fear of the unknown.

"Some of them believe that it is a grave sin; they’re afraid that we’ll indoctrinate them or their kids and they’ll go to hell," she said. "I think that a lot of them are just afraid of things that are outside the norm, or what is seen as 'normative,' and anything that isn’t is scary."

Kevin Crowe says it's baffling to him.

"I don’t quite get this arrogance. A lot of Christian nationalists think, 'We’re doing the Lord’s work and get out of our way' kind of attitude and I don’t like that at all. Not everyone voted for you."

Ruth wants the school board and Ottawa Impact to know that she and others are going to push back.

"I knew that my leaving the hall of fame would mean something to so many more people than me staying in it," she said. "People kept saying, 'If you stay in it, someone down the road in history — some kids are going to look up to you.' And I said, 'Yeah. But what about the kids right now?' I’m happy that down the road, I could potentially be an inspiration to somebody, but I can be a greater inspiration now if I am willing to leave the hall of fame.

"It’s a big deal to these people," she said. "To me, it’s not a big deal if you don’t take pride in the hall of fame that you’re in and the school that you’re in and you represent them. I really felt I had no choice and it was the right thing to do. And every time we push back, they need to know that they’re not going to just waltz in here and think they have this majority and everyone is just going to go along with all the ridiculous things that they want to do."

She said her only goal in returning to her alma mater was to help students find a creative outlet.

"The level of depression among teens has skyrocketed. It’s higher than it’s ever been in decades and my art workshop is only one tool, because it’s all about journaling and using a creative outlet as a form of expression. That’s all it was. It’s not like I was I was trying to go into Allendale High School and give a gay pride speech to the entire school."

In fact, national statistics say suicide is the second-leading cause of death among young people aged 10 to 24 — and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth are at significantly increased risk.

Leighton-Colburn said there's a caveat to that data.

"These kids aren’t inherently, innately prone to suicide risk just due to the fact that they identify as LGBTQ+," she said. "But they’re at higher risk because they’re mistreated and stigmatized by society.

"The truth is in the numbers. Young people, when they don’t feel safe or nurtured or cared for, or integrated into the community, they’re at a much greater risk of depression and suicide and a whole host of other mental health challenges. And outside of mental health, they’re at a higher risk of touchpoints with the justice system, the foster care system, with the homelessness system.

When asked what she would say to Ottawa Impact officials, Leighton-Colburn said it's all about seeing the bigger picture.

"I would tell them that LGBTQ+ representation in schools — that’s not the risk to their children that they’re so worried about. I understand wanting to protect your kids. I understand that deeply, given the fact that I’ve worked with so many LGBTQ+ youths. The risk isn’t in representation. The risk is in the lack thereof. That’s when we see a failure to thrive.

"No one’s turning their kids gay," she said. "No one’s turning their kids trans. Kids are kids — everywhere. They just want to be seen and loved and cared for and integrated into their community."

Leighton-Colburn said Ottawa Impact needs to wake up to the fact that LGBTQ people are in all communities, and that society can't ignore them.

"These kids do exist," she said. "For folks who seem to care so much about protecting our children, they’re ignoring a whole group of kids right here in our community and just want to be loved for who they are. I want to protect our kids, too. We all do."

Ruth said it was simple for her. She knew what she had to do.

"I saw it as a moment. And sometimes you have to seize that moment. And if you’re in a position where you can help other people — especially these kids that are in that school, who don’t have a voice and don’t really have anyone helping them — it just helps to have someone who’s in the hall of fame say to the school, 'What you’re doing is not good enough.' And with that school board? It’s not going to get good enough until people start pushing back."

She said it'll take the entire community to combat the ostracization of the LGBTQ community, and that decades of progress are at stake.

"We need to make sure they understand just how many people are our allies. They don’t have to be gay. They just have to be allies of people who are other — other sexualities, other colors, differing religions. We want to be that kind of inclusive community that only makes us better instead of this white Christian — that that’s the only thing that’s acceptable."

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And Ruth certainly has no regrets.

"The school does not have the right to hold me up on one hand as a pillar of pride, and push me down with the other, as a pillar of shame. ... They’re not worthy of me coming into the school."

— Sarah Leach is executive editor of The Holland Sentinel. Contact her at sarah.leach@hollandsentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @SentinelLeach.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Groundbreaking local artist to Ottawa Impact officials: 'I'm more than just gay'