LAS VEGAS — A prominent private school in the Las Vegas area is recalling its yearbooks after administrators learned a student quoted the founder of the American Nazi Party in its pages.
The yearbook for the Meadows School, located in Summerlin, featured a photo of a student with a quote: “Being prepared to die is one of the great secrets of living,” according to a copy of the yearbook page obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The quote, attributed anonymously, was taken from a 1966 interview that George Lincoln Rockwell, a notorious American white supremacist, gave to “Roots” author Alex Haley.
In another response on the student’s yearbook page, when asked, “How can I influence others?” the student replied, “Take control of a country.”
The student also listed politics, history and human biology as interests on the yearbook page.
The student was unable to be reached for comment Friday.
Lauren Walker, a spokeswoman for the Meadows School, said the school is investigating the matter.
“We are collecting our yearbooks due to a quote that was included with an anonymous attribution that runs counter to our school’s core values,” Walker wrote in an email. “We are taking this very seriously, and cannot provide further details until our investigation is complete.”
Rockwell was a notorious provocateur in the 1960s, known for trolling college campuses, leading a violent counterprotest to Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago and his harassing of the Freedom Riders. He was assassinated by a disgruntled former member of his own movement in 1967.
The Meadows School was founded in 1984 by Carolyn Goodman, the current mayor of Las Vegas. The nonprofit school serves grades pre-K through high school. The upper school costs more than $31,000 a year.
Goodman did not immediately return a request for comment Friday afternoon.
In a Wednesday email to parents obtained by the Review-Journal, Dana Larson, director of the Meadows’ upper school, said the yearbooks were being recalled to correct “unfortunate, regrettable mistakes.”
Larson requested that students bring back their yearbooks to their advisers.
“Please know that we will return them to you (with your personal notes, etc.) as soon as possible, but we need all of them back first,” Larson said.
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