Contrary to Salt Lake Tribune 'fact-check,' photos and videos appear to show multiple students dressed and behaving as furries at Utah school

Earlier this week, a video went viral on social media, showing students protesting "furries" — people who identify as animals, wear animal-like apparel, and mimic animal behaviors — at Mt. Nebo Middle School in Payson, Utah, about an hour south of Salt Lake City, as Blaze News previously reported. Despite the number of students participating in the protest and the availability of evidence supporting their claims, the Salt Lake Tribune almost immediately issued a "fact-check" insisting that the furry allegations were likely false.

Blaze News spoke with multiple Mt. Nebo parents and students, including Kendalyn, the 13-year-old girl who orchestrated the walkout and the attending paper and online petitions. Through our conversations, Blaze News found evidence of students referring to one another as "furries," wearing animal clothing and masks in defiance of understood district dress code, and crawling about and growling in a manner that is likely to bother others. In other words, we have ample evidence that the allegations demand a good-faith investigation from the media, an investigation that the Salt Lake Tribune has thus far opted not to conduct.

'Just sprayed ... in the f***ing eyes': Clear evidence of a problem

Blaze News received nearly a dozen pieces of photographic and video evidence showing some students in animal outfits causing a disturbance and perhaps even physical harm. A former school employee, Katie Ogren, as well as a sixth-grade student there confirmed to Blaze News that each of the following videos and photos, given to us by a separate source, were taken of Mt. Nebo students on school grounds.

The first video is the most damning. In addition to demonstrating that kids in animal masks regularly gather on school property, the video shows one student apparently bragging: "I just sprayed [inaudible] in the f***ing eyes!" Several demonstrators at the walkout reported that furries have occasionally sprayed unsuspecting students with Febreze. Kendalyn told Blaze News that her friend was victimized by such an attack in the girls' restroom, outside the purview of school surveillance cameras.

Other videos show kids flailing about on all fours while screaming or barking. In one video, one female student can even be heard exclaiming near a group of girls in animal masks: "It's a furry in action!"

A small sampling of these photos also show kids routinely donning animal-like clothing and accessories. Though no photos show an animal tail, Ogren told Blaze News she found a tail lying on the ground the day she resigned from the district. "One furry lost their tail in the lunch room," she said. "And I saw it laying there, and I was like, 'Oh, they're gonna be sad that's gone!'"

Administrators plead for 'understanding ... and tolerance'

As strange as some of the Mt. Nebo student behavior and clothing has been, the response from adults in the building is perhaps more alarming. Various students at the walkout claimed to have reported to teachers and administrators incidents of furries barking, hissing, preening, and even biting, only to be either ignored or even disciplined for lodging complaints.

"If we try to do something to get away from [the furries], or we, like, tell them to stop, we get suspended," one boy told reporter Adam Bartholomew of Utah Main Street Media.

In late February or early March, Katie Ogren — who is not a licensed teacher but who, until recently, worked with struggling Mt. Nebo students as a "success coach" — received a report from a frustrated girl who claimed to have been bitten by a furry after she repeatedly asked the furry to leave her alone. When the girl reported the alleged bite to another teacher, the other teacher supposedly advised her to exercise greater tolerance.

"This teacher said we just have to be nice," the girl claimed, Ogren told Blaze News. "We can't discriminate."

Though Blaze News could not independently verify this incident, we did receive a copy of a memo sent to Mt. Nebo parents on Tuesday, the day before the walkout, that expressed a similar idea. It seems to ask students to demonstrate "curiosity, understanding, patience and tolerance" toward "a small group of students at our school," almost certainly a veiled reference to the furries.

The memo also issued a blanket warning against violating dress code and creating a hostile learning environment. Students at the walkout were frustrated that this warning was sent to all students rather than those like the furries who have allegedly disregarded those policies.

"They won't talk to [the furries] directly," one girl said. "They just sent out an email and have the school, like, tell everyone."

'Just what kids this age do': Salt Lake Tribune takes district at its word

At about 9:30 p.m. on the day of the Mt. Nebo walkout, at about the time Blaze News was speaking with walkout organizer Kendalyn and her parents, all three of whom reportedly attended the demonstration, the Salt Lake Tribune was publishing its "fact-check" article: "Fact check: Nebo School District responds to claims about student protest over 'furries.'"

The article, written by Tribune education reporter Michael Lee, appears to make little attempt to understand the nature or veracity of the furry allegations. Lee did not mention speaking with Mt. Nebo students or other members of the community, even though anywhere between 60 and 150 students attended the walkout despite a looming threat of suspension.

Instead, Lee hinted that the apparent furry clique at Mt. Nebo is little more than a boogeyman created by "conservative social media circles" to foment "right-wing outrage." "[The] video and claims had been picked up and spread by Libs of TikTok, an account on X that shares anti-LGBTQ posts," Lee fretted. He also pointedly noted that Cari Bartholomew, the wife of the Utah Main Street Media reporter who documented the walkout and spoke with students and parents for over an hour, "is running as a far-right candidate for the Utah State Board of Education in District 13."

In fact, the only source for Lee's self-identifying fact-check appears to be Seth Sorenson, described in the article as a spokesperson for Nebo School District. Sorenson's email signature provides two much more colorful job titles for him: Communications & Community Relations Administrator and Nebo Education Foundation Executive Director.

Sorenson emphatically denied the existence of a furry group at Mt. Nebo, dismissing the accusations as young kids occasionally playing dress-up. "You’ll have students that show up with headbands and giant bows; you’ll have students that show up dressed as their favorite basketball player or baseball player," he told Lee. "That’s just what kids this age do."

Sorenson also blamed at least some of the community outrage on parents who, he claimed, misunderstood a recent school memo. That memo, allegedly issued the week before the walkout, reportedly called for greater respect and tolerance among the diverse Mt. Nebo student body. Some parents and students mistakenly believed that the school was "taking the side of a single group, saying, 'We want you to be kind to this group, but they don’t have to be kind to anyone else,'" Sorenson said.

Lee admitted in the article that his outlet did not independently view the school memo, claiming it was not "immediately" available since "Sorenson said the campus and its staff had since dismissed for the day and he didn’t have a copy on hand."

Perhaps Lee should have insisted on being furnished with a copy, since Sorenson appears to have conflated two different messages, only one of which was directly given to parents. According to three Mt. Nebo parents, the school did not send a "direct message" about the issue "to families last week," as Lee asserted in the article. The only memo regarding respect and kindness parents have received lately is the "understanding ... and tolerance" memo discussed in the section above.

That email, sent on Tuesday and not last week, does reference another message of unknown content that Mt. Nebo teachers were told to relay to "their 6th period classes" on April 15. School administrators, it seems, entrusted middle-school students to pass along the message to their worried parents.

Blaze News reached out to Lee for comment but did not receive a response. We also reached out to the managing editors at the Tribune to find out whether there had been any editorial oversight on Lee's thinly sourced "fact-check." One editor responded and claimed that our inquiries had been passed along to executive editor Lauren Gustus. That was the last — and in fact the only — communication we received from the Tribune.

No 'masks or animal costumes': District denies furries' existence at Mt. Nebo

Blaze News also had several email interactions with Seth Sorenson, the representative of Nebo School District who likewise spoke with Lee. During these interactions, Sorenson repeatedly denied the existence of a furry problem at Mt. Nebo and even suggested that media outlets such as Blaze News had misled the public in their reporting.

In his initial email to us, Sorenson unequivocally stated that no Mt. Nebo student had worn "masks or animal costumes" at school or engaged in the frightening animal-like behaviors. "There have been no incidents of biting, licking, costumes, or animal behavior at Mt. Nebo Middle School. These rumors are unfounded and are not occurring in our schools," he insisted.

When Blaze News sent Sorenson an image and video that seemed to contradict some of his assertions, he became even more indignant. "None of the video or photographic evidence we have seen shows students dressing up as animals, or acting like animals, as that would not be allowed," he replied. "We can not (sic) even confirm that these videos are of our students and in our schools."

Blaze News then sent a copy of the video that apparently captures a student boasting about spraying someone with chemicals. Sorenson first claimed he could not open the video. We sent along yet another copy of the video, but he made no reply.

The last missive we did receive from Sorenson refused to acknowledge the existence of a furry problem and instead took aim at our previous coverage of the walkout: "Several [news outlets] have even written articles debunking the information your group presented as fact in your group's previous article, or simply decided that there really was no story and did not do anything on it," he wrote. He did not mention the names of any such outlets.

"Journalism requires investigation and research," he continued. "Just as a note, those media outlets who have taken the time to come to our schools and visit with the administration have seen that there is absolutely no validity to the wild accusations being thrown about online."

Kelly Taylor, the principal of Mt. Nebo, did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

There is no indication that the Salt Lake Tribune or any other outlet actually spoke with the parents who were raising the complaints to determine whether they had any evidence to support their claims — evidence that the parents were readily able to provide to Blaze News.

'We're standing up': Demonstrators remain strong

Kendalyn, Katie Ogren, and others in the Payson, Utah, community who tell Blaze News they are fed up with furries and other disciplinary issues at Mt. Nebo have not been deterred by the reports from the district or the Salt Lake Tribune. If anything, they feel more compelled to speak out in the hopes of protecting students who just want to go to school without fear of torment.

Ogren, who attended the walkout even though she resigned from the district last week, claimed that for too long, victimized students have been trapped in a no-win situation. "It's this double standard, I believe, that if you don't have proof, nothing happened, nothing happened without proof," she said. "However, if they pull out their phone and record something, then they get in trouble for recording it."

"Because [they] are not a minority, [their] voices cannot be heard."

Kendalyn, who told Blaze News that school administrators are too "scared" to address the furry problem, feels emboldened by all the support she and her classmates have received from the community.

"I know I've got all these people here to support me," Kendalyn stated at the walkout she put into motion. "I've got the moms. I've got the city to support me. I have my parents to support me, and if we need to, I'll go to another school.

"But we're standing up for what we believe in."

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