From our February 1, 2001, edition.

Men plead guilty to burning crosses 

Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

Two local men who stunned the city when they set a cross on fire last October received the maximum sentence for their actions in county court January 18 before Judge Jack Hall.

Max C. Rippetoe and Joseph M. Shadle waived their rights to a jury trial and entered pleas of guilty, according to records in the Donley County Clerk’s office. The two are serving 180 days in the Donley County Jail.

The sentences stem from the October 30, 2000, burning of a cross  on N. Jefferson Street. Another cross was found on S. McClelland Street but did not catch fire after it was lit.

Rippetoe and Shadle were arrested for the crime two days later by the Donley County Sheriff’s Department, and the two subsequently confessed to building and lighing both crosses. They said they had meant their actions to be “a joke.”

Local residents said the acts were unprecedented.

“There’s never been an incident like that before,” former city alderman Mack Smith told the Enterprise at the time. Smith has lived here for 50 years.

County Attorney Pro Tem Kaye Messer said she was personally offended by the cross burnings. She hopes the maximum sentence will send a message.

“I would have loved to have pushed [the sentence] up, but that’s the most I could do, and I wouldn’t budge it lower at all,” she said

Disorderly conduct is usually a Class C misdemeanor, but records say the location of the incident was  selected because of the defendants’ “bias and prejudice against minorities.” The charge was therefore enhanced to a Class B misdemeanor under state statute.