Roy Costner IV
By Suzanne O'Keeffe, 700 Club Interactive
CBN.com –ROY COSTNER
In the town of Liberty, there are 3,000 people and three traffic lights. The Costner family is deeply rooted in faith, commitment to God, and each other. Roy Costner is a young man with strong Christian beliefs, and a desire to help the community where he lives. In 2011, he and two of his friends created the website called Libertyspeaks. They recognized in their town of Liberty there was not to be found a media site that offered "positive, reliable information." They also decided that not only would it be about news, but would include partnering to assist their town in any way they could. Their site includes debates, events, radio broadcasts, and other events.
Month's back it came to Roy's attention there had arisen a debate over prayer at public school events. The ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation were bullying the local school board. Roy became aware that the complaints were not from the inside of the town out, but from the outside groups in. It had not been a problem locally; there had been no complaints of public prayer. The website has been up since 2011, so they began to watch the proceedings with a keen interest. In one article written by the Christian Post, he was quoted, "We stay involved in our community, so we all went to the school board meeting when they were deciding on public prayer, and we packed it out. It was so crowded that you couldn't move inside, and there was a huge circle of people outside, too. It seemed like everyone in attendance supported prayer in schools, but the school board voted against prayer 3-2 even though not all the members were present for the vote."
The school board, according to Roy, reacted in fear and took prayer out of everything; they "banned prayer and all religious references from athletic events and anything school-related. They took away a lot of rights relating to prayer and free speech." Included in the removal of those rights was the ability to pray at high school graduations.
PREPARATION AND DELIVERY
June 1, 2013 was Liberty High School's graduation. Roy was preparing to be salutatorian, not expecting to be valedictorian. It was an extra class that he had taken that moved him into that position. Two weeks before the day of graduation, Roy began to work on his speech. He "felt led" to incorporate The Lord's Prayer in his address, but not before running it by pastors and several people in the community. Roy prayed for several days as he wanted to make sure his motives were in order, being sure he was not doing this "for myself."
The speech had to be approved by the school board before he could deliver it. The speech was approved exactly as he had written it minus the mention of God. It was not until Roy was at the podium that he tore up the approved speech and pulled out the one with The Lord's prayer.
Roy is a young man of strong faith and belief in the First Amendment for any and all. This was his first run in with censorship, and Roy felt that he had worked hard for his privilege of being valedictorian, and should be able to give credit to whom he want. He clearly believes this is for all saying," Just because I prayed to my God doesn't mean that someone else isn't allowed to pray to who they want or say what they believe. We should all have free speech.
PUBLIC RESPONSE
As he delivered his address reciting the prayer, there was a spontaneous outbreak of applause. However, it has not been limited to that one event; people in Liberty and all over the country have supported him. There are those who oppose his act as well, but he remains humbled and "surprised by all the media coverage and interest in this story." On his website there is an article titled A Week in 36 Hours, describing the recent whirlwind trip to New York City. He was interviewed by Fox and Friends, syndicated journalist Cal Thomas, Megyn Kelly, Sean Hannity, CNN, and the The Today Show. It did not end there for Roy, last week he returned to Palmetto Boys State. The program is for young men who want to learn the American system of politics and government. They participate in "mock governmental system." Over 900 seniors are chosen by their teachers and counselors. They attend as either delegates or citizens. It is an honor to attend as they have speakers such as Governor Dick Riley, Senator Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, Speaker of the House David Wilkins and others, while learning the workings of the U.S. government.
Some people have asked to send money but the family says,"please don't send money." If people want to do something then take a stand. Roy's desire is to see people wake up from complacency and hold fast to the freedoms and never give up. He knows God used him at his graduation, and as he attends Clemson University this fall, he wants the Lord to continue to use him as His witness.