Community calls out 'blanket apology' for 'demeaning, insulting' comments by Chairman

The April 14 Floyd County Board of Supervisors meeting started with Chairman Joe Turman of Burks Fork reading the apology he issued last week after detailing his opinion on women in positions of power in high-level government during the March 24 meeting.

In part, the statement Turman released reads: 

“It was my intention to celebrate the many women in County leadership roles, as elected officials, as leaders in County Administration, and as leaders of our public schools. My goal was to acknowledge their dedicated service to the community and to thank them for their good work, which often, sadly, goes unrecognized. It was not my place to speculate on those serving at higher levels of government, or to generalize about an entire category of people. For that I am sincerely sorry.

“Leaders in our community, including me, have an obligation to be mindful of how we present ourselves, and to recognize that our words carry weight. The community looks to us to set an example and to demonstrate the best values of the community. My comments on March 24 fell short, and for that I am sorry.”

Turman added to his statement on Tuesday, saying that he personally apologized to Supervisor Linda DeVito Kuchenbuch during the Board’s Budget Workshop after the March 24 meeting. He said, “At no time were my comments directed toward her. We may not always agree, but I respect her as a member of this Board.”

Public comments made later in the April 14 meeting also revolved around Turman’s comments from the previous meeting. 

County resident Elena Huffman, who has raised two children as a single parent, said Turman’s remarks set her “heart back 50 years.” She said she is “very disappointed” in both Turman and the other Board members who laughed at his comments. She added that the apology is a “blanket apology” and that Turman would resign from the Board if he had “any credibility.” 

She said, “I can’t raise my kids to stand in their power when you kick it out from underneath their feet.” 

Karen Baker, leader of the Democratic Party of Floyd County, said Turman effectively “otherized” an entire demographic. “What you did was create a situation [that said], ‘here it’s okay because our women are okay, but those other women are not okay, and they hurt other women, and they’re bad’,” Baker said. “So we know that what you think is that women in general are stepping out of their “place” and they’re not behaving appropriately.” 

She agreed with Huffman’s take on the apology: “...Saying, ‘I’m sorry if I made anybody unhappy’ shows no true remorse.” 

Baker also agreed with Huffman about the actions of the other Board members and said she recognized their “nervous laughter.” However, she said, by not publicly speaking up at the time, his fellow Board members deemed Turman’s comments acceptable. The other Supervisors had an obligation to help the Board step beyond Turman’s remarks and reconfirm that they represent all of the people of Floyd County, according to Baker.

“I would hope that the Board would consider, at some point, issuing a statement about how you represent everybody in this county — not just the men, and not just the women who ‘know their place’,” Baker said.

Just after the conclusion of the public comment period, Turman’s remarks were also addressed by Little River Supervisor Linda DeVito Kuchenbuch, who read a prepared statement into the record. She said that Turman’s apology does not change the fact that what he said was “demeaning, insulting, and not worthy of someone who sits on this Board representing both men and women in this County.”

“We deserve better,” DeVito Kuchenbuch said. “In the face of all of this, I will continue to work hard as the only woman currently serving on the Board of Supervisors here in Floyd County.”

In full the statement read: 

"As I was preparing these remarks over the last two weeks, what stood out more than anything is after all this time, and all the work that's been done, how in the world would I still be making these comments in 2026. I truly believed by this time, my daughter, my daughter-in-law, my niece, my acquaintances through the ‘90s and into the 2000s, would not have to still be fighting this fight for women to be accepted on all levels in the work place, as athletes and as elected officials. I can only hope my granddaughters are free of this burden in the years to come.

"As we are in the Easter season, it should be remembered that when God wanted the message, Jesus had risen on Easter Sunday morning, He trusted three women to deliver the news to the Apostles. However, even though they were sent by God, the men in the room did not believe.

"As we raced in the 1960s to put men on the moon, it was the work of women, Black women specifically, that did many of the math calculations that truly made the Apollo missions possible.

"Last week we watched after 56 years, a United States spacecraft orbit the moon traveling farther than any other space crew had done before. Christina Koch became the first woman to be on a lunar mission and first to orbit the moon.

"My fellow Supervisor and Chairman of this Board made some derogatory comments about women two weeks ago. This was very unfortunate. An apology was issued, and last week Mr. Turman personally apologized to me at our budget session.

"Although the apology was given, it doesn't erase the fact the comments made were demeaning, insulting, and not worthy of someone who sits on this Board representing both men and women in this County.

"As a woman in a leadership position, I have had a few "first woman to" moments. I am very proud of these accomplishments. I have worked hard at all of my jobs during my career. I have expressed a very real interest to be Chairperson of this Board for a number of years now and have been blocked many times. It is unfortunate as the second current most senior member serving on this Board, I have been kept from assuming the Chairperson role. A number of my constituents in the Little River District have asked why this has been the case.

"As we continue through the 2020s, I am amazed the following kind of rhetoric continues to be espoused.

"Scott Yenor, Chair of the American Citizenship Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, says professional women are "medicated, meddlesome, and quarrelsome" and also said, "Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school and the law and every trade. If every Nobel Prize winner is a man, that's not a failure."

"We deserve better. In the face of all of this, I will continue to work hard as the only woman currently serving on the Board of Supervisors here in Floyd County. I will continue to represent ALL of the constituents of the Little River District with hard work as well as fiscal and social responsibility. 

"I am a proud woman and citizen of The United States of America where at every meeting, I recite The Pledge of Allegiance, which ends with '...liberty and justice for all'."

Following her prepared statement, DeVito Kuchenbuch said, “As a Board, we all must work together. I have a right to express my opinion, as does everybody else. And, we’ll see where we go from here.” 

The original comments made by Turman can be read here. His full apology, as initially released, can be read at the bottom of the article.