A Denver high school teacher brought her students to observe the Occupy Denver protest of Blogcon, a conservative blogger conference held in Denver, on Friday afternoon to see "the democratic process in action" she said in a recently posted YouTube video. The teacher and students certainly got an eyeful on Friday.
7News reports that the teacher's name is Celia Bard and the high school she teaches at is St. Mary's Academy in Denver. Bard is seen standing with several of her students in the video and refuses to give her name or school name in the video as the anonymous person interviewing her gets increasingly hostile towards her being at the event.
Bard says the field trip is related to the class she is teaching the students called "21st Century: Challenges and Choices" which is described as being focused "on solutions for major global issues facing humanity in the 21st century," according to the school's course catalog.
As The Denver Post reported, Occupy Denver staged a protest at Blogcon held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Friday and made two attempts to disrupt the conference leading to one arrest. The conservative blogger conference was prepared for the possibility of an Occupy Denver protest and had even purchased Milk Bones for the recently elected canine leader of the Denver movment, a 3-year-old border collie named Shelby.
Approximately 30 protesters showed up at the conference, according to the Associated Press. Protesters shouted "We are the 99 percent!" at the bloggers, while the bloggers taunted the protesters by shouting "We want the dog!," a reference to Occupy Denver's Shelby. Bloggers also sang "Na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye!" when the occupiers were forced to leave the conference.