Skip to main contentTHEN: Amid much fanfare, Ben Canada was appointed Portland's schools superintendent in 1998. He should have done well. He came from a bigger town, Atlanta, where he had faced far more intractable problems, and this appealed to Puddletown's inferiority complex. But Canada smiled too much and did too little.
He lost the support of teachers, middle-class parents and, finally, a coalition of minority activists who charged he was ineffective at serving their children. Pushed out of office in 2001, he departed with a $300,000 parachute.
NOW: After Canada was ousted, the onetime lay minister said he was considering returning to seminary. Instead, he joined the Texas Association of School Boards in August 2002, where he works for a guy named (we're not kidding) Jim Crow.
Intro | Tonya's Mob: Tonya Harding, Jeff Gillooly & Shawn Eckardt | The Crusader: Gordon Shadburne | The Meteor: Billy Ray Bates | Satan's Pilgrim: Rex Diabolos Church | The Firebrand: Ron Herndon | The Bad Boy: Frank Peters | The Broken Halo: Michael Stoops | The Crack Mother: Anita Nichols | The Veejay: Kennedy | The Girl from Electra: Treva Throneberry | The Perfect Victim: Azalea Cooley | The Grappler: Dutch Savage | Wonder Boy: Pat Gillis | The Ex-Files: Marcia & Steve Moskowitz | The Witness: Dave Mazzella | The Prankster: Igor Vamos | The Intern: Monica Lewinsky | The Runaways: Diane Walden & Peter | Top Cop: Mark Kroeker | Sprawl Kitten: Kate Schiele | Authority Figure: Rocky Balada | The Hulk: Dry Dock 4 | The Candidate: Gail Shibley | The Super: Ben Canada | The Organ Grinder: Dr. William J. Brady | Pillars of the Community: The Lovejoy Columns | The Survivor: Giles Thompson | The Contender: Andy Minsker | Space Invader: The Phantom Dialer | The Red Menace: Ma Anand Sheela
WWeek 2015