Paul Hazard, a former state trooper who dubbed the proposed sex-ed standards “a pedophile’s dream,” was the top vote-getter in the May primary among eight candidates for the Kearney school board. Sherry Jones, a retired educator who has said the standards “sealed” her decision to run for an open seat on the state school board, garnered more than twice as many primary votes as Danielle Helzer, who supported the sex-ed framework. Elections for the local and state school boards are nonpartisan.

“Vote for SHERRY!!! Helzer wants to groom your kids for pedophiles & traffickers,” one Jones supporter wrote on Facebook. Helzer, 36, is a former teacher who has screened volunteers for the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program.

“I don’t take it personally because I know it’s not true, but I don’t take it lightly,” Helzer, who as the runner-up will move on to the general election in November, said in an interview. “People are genuinely fearful of their kids being sexually abused, and that fear has driven them to use grooming as a political weapon.”