My sister, Traci Eccles, has had her share of evil in the past five years and she inspires me as she continues to move forward in her life to overcome evil [with good]. I blog today about Traci to share her story of one evil she is currently dealing with.
* After of traumatic experience with being sexually harassed by a co-worker five years ago, Traci found herself crushed by a "good old boys" network of which her harasser had a key position of power.
* Traci settled with the school district and resigned from her job believing it would be the best way to leave the emotionally damaging experience behind so that she could remove herself from the negative environment and find employment teaching in another school district.
* Unfortunately, the school district blatantly violated every part of their end of the agreement after the resignation creating a smear campaign against Traci which resulted in her more or less being black balled in the area she lived. Traci chose to leave the state in order to get a job in education, which she did; she has a 20 year spotless record of excellence in her profession and was offered a job promptly in the state of Texas to live close to me and my family.
* An inaccurate article about the sexual harassment appeared in the local Longview Daily News Paper during this time that effectively turned the tables on her by making Traci look like the villain and her harasser the victim. She believed at the time that after everything she had already come up against, she had no recourse about these printed lies. However, Traci knew that any critical reader would see right through the article because it is written with such flagrant bias that it is almost comical.
Why does this matter five years later?
* This negative (inaccurate) article from 2008 continues to be the very first hit on any Google search that includes her name, Traci Eccles. Oddly, it connects in no way to any other name in the article or the district itself. In fact, you can put in the title of the article and it does not come up in a Google search.
* Traci has relocated back to the Vancouver area and is currently looking for a teaching position.
* Nearly every employer these days relies heavily on checking the online reputation of potential hires before even considering interviewing a candidate for a job (especially in teaching).
* Less than one year before the negative and slanderous article was published in The Daily News, they did a full page article with a picture raving about the first ever Nationally Certified teacher in the district (who happened to be Traci Eccles!)
* This article has [somehow] been blocked [by The Daily New] so that it does not come up on a Google search even if the exact title is used. And it does not come up in a search of her name or any combination of words in the title.
What can we do to help Traci?
* All she wants is a fair chance at employment by allowing both articles (published in the same newspaper less than a year apart) to appear on the first page of a Google search of her name. Any employer who sees both articles would hopefully be able to see that something very strange was at play here.
* Most people are aware that the amount of traffic (number of hits) a particular Internet article gets is what determines order on what comes up on a search. It is ridiculous to believe that there are so many people looking at the negative article on a daily basis five years later, that it would remain on the top as number one. This has been investigated and it could only be accomplished through internal linking to other high traffic pages at its source (The Daily News). In the same way, it is only possible for the newspapers own webmasters to prevent the positive article from getting any traffic by making it almost impossible to find. If you do link to it and you try to print it, it will print blank.
HOW YOU CAN HELP!!! I have included the link to the hidden article below...it is very difficult to locate through a basic Google search. If it does start to get hits, I would not be surprised if the link ends up being quickly broken. If you feel led to help, all you need to do, is click on that link to The Daily News article once, or many times, closing out each time. Don't feel you need to read it, it really isn't that interesting... although I'm VERY PROUD of my sister for achieving this accomplishment.
My hope is with the help of people LIKE YOU who believe in what's right, this hidden article gets so many hits that it ends up somewhere on the first page of a Google search of any one searching her name so that future employers see the positive. Also by writing this blog post, perhaps a future employer might stumble on the article through this venue. God is in control!
Traci has left this awful experience in the past but it still seems to haunt her. She is an awesome teacher, sister, and friend. God will bless Traci's faithfulness to Him as she trusts in His providence in her life.
To the "good old boys" in Longview...
...as for you, you meant evil against Traci,
but God meant it for good.
(personalized from Genesis 50:20 ESV)
I am confident everything happens for a reason, and God will bring much good out of Traci's trials. Please include Traci in your prayers as the Lord may lead.
