Story By Mary Bailey
The Marshall County Republican Women monthly meeting was held last week with a full house at Bakers on Main in Guntersville.
Guest speakers included Becky Gerritson, executive director of Eagle Forum and Dr. Stephen Clayton Webber, candidate for Marshall County Superintendent of Schools.
“I want to thank the members of the club for allowing me to speak this morning. Real quickly I would like to thank my family for being here with me today. My wife is here and my two daughters, I also want to thank my parents for being here today. I appreciate everyone’s support,” Dr. Webber spoke. “I could talk about a lot of different things this morning but what I really want to communicate to you is why I am running for Marshall County Superintendent.”
Dr. Webber said he didn’t just wake up one morning and decided he wanted to run, he said he sought the Lord about it.
“It was not a decision I took lightly. I prayed about it for months until I felt released from the Lord to do it. So that’s really the why about why I am running for Marshall County Superintendent,” he continued. “When I was a kid in school, I absolutely loved school. I was the kid that on the last day of school when everyone wanted to stay home, I was the kid that showed up. The teachers were like, why are you here. I loved my teachers; I loved my peers and when I graduated school, I gave a lot of people a lot of money so I could go to school some more. For 24 years I went to school. Now I have been in school and working in education for the last 18 years, 14 years of that as a high school administrator and I still love school.”
He said he knew in the ninth grade what he wanted to do as his career.
“I knew I wanted to be a history teacher, I loved history and that’s what I wanted to do. I went to school got a degree and came back as a history teacher. One day I taught for a few years and my principal came to me and she asked me if I had ever thought about being a Guidance Counselor. I went home and talked to my wife and prayed about it and then the next day I took the job,” Dr. Webber continued. “As a teacher and Guidance Counselor I began to see things in my school challenges, frustrations, issues and I thought I could make a difference. When I saw problems, I also saw a solution. Common sense solutions things that I thought I could improve, that I could make the lives of students, teachers and my community better.”
Webber said he soon left all of his coaching duties at the school and went back to school because he wanted to be a school principal.
“I thought if I was a school principal I could affect change and I could influence people, I could make their lives better and I could give back. And that’s what I did, I went back to school and got my admin degree. I have now been a school administrator for 14 years, nine of which have been at Asbury High School here in Marshall County,” he said. “I think really, I see the same things as an administrator as I did as a teacher and counselor. I see problems, I see issues, I see challenges but I also solutions and I think I have something to offer. I think under my leadership that I could make some improvements to a lot of these areas, and I would love the opportunity to do that and the opportunity to give back to something that I feel like I benefitted from my entire life. I am a product of public education in rural Alabama schools. I want to give back to Marshall County and I want to give back to the communities in this county.”
Becky Gerritson, executive director of Eagle Forum gave a short review of Eagle Forum 2025 legislative session.
She included an important overview on the bill to limit THC in hemp products in AL. (EFA advocated for a total ban on high potency THC which was not achieved with HB445.
“Not only do we try to build the grass roots, but we also work on a lot of legislative issues. When the state house is in session, I am at the state house every day. We have different people that are there advocating for you. We like to say we are your voice at the state house,” Gerritson said. “I want to focus a little on the Hemp Bill and where we stand on that.”
She went over how the Hemp shops across the state came to be.
“One of the big bills that passed this year was dealing with Hemp. There is a difference between Hemp and Marijuana. Both are cannabis. Hemp has high CBD and low HCT, but Marijuana is just the opposite. It has very low CBD and high in THC,” she said. “How did we get to have these Hemp shops all around Alabama? In 2018 the US Congress passed a bill that would help farmers be able to grow Hemp. But it was really for the fibers and materials, there was this one little loophole in there. When they did this bill, they weren’t really thinking of edible products they were really talking about fibers. But they said if you start out with .3% THC which is natural in Hemp then you have this. So, people got the idea, of let’s take that original .3% and synthesize it, add other drugs to it and then we can sell it and call it Hemp. That is basically how we got to where these Hemp products have been synthetically altered and they are sold everywhere.”
She then shared a video presentation about the facts and myths of Marijuana.
The Marshall County Republican Women meet the fourth Thursday of each month at 11:30 a.m. For more information, email mcorwomen@gmail.com
