After Rick Southerland drops out from NHC Board of Education race, local Wilmington acting group removes his profile off website

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WWAY)– The PTPT performance studio at thalian hall is busy rehearsing for its new production, “Misfits Cabaret”. The production will not include Dean of Performance Rick Southerland, or Musical Director Jaymes Osborne.

“I can confirm they are no longer with PTPT,” said Emilia Torello, the executive director of PTPT. She says she is shocked to hear the turn of events involving Rick Southerland.

Just a day after being one of the top finishers for the New Hanover County Democratic Board of Education, it was revealed that Southerland neglected to share that he was friends and lived with Jaymes Osborne, a registered sex offender who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Both Southerland and Osborne were featured on the PTPT website, but today their pictures were absent.

After Torello found out that Osborne was a sex offender, and had a friendship with Southerland, she moved quickly to remove them from the organization, which teaches acting to adults and children 14 and up.

Torello is disappointed that the organization didn’t look deeper into the past of these leaders.

“We were already planning on background checks, we are just a very new company, and so with putting everything all together, we unfortunately weren’t able to implement that before everything that happened,” said Torello.

What is the next step? Torello says she will focus on creating a safe environment for her students and implement stricter rules to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

“I told my students last night, that there isn’t something that they can say that I won’t believe. If they come to me, I will support them and help them find a solution. I look at this as a growing opportunity, in learning how to re-direct, to make sure we are truly creating a professional work environment for everyone involved,” said Torello.

Like PTPT, the New Hanover County Democratic Party is looking on how its vetting candidates, and the school board still stinging form the fallout of the infamous 2003 Michael Kelly sex scandal. Just a few weeks ago, it ordered its insurance company to settle with its remaining student victims. They got 640 thousand dollars.

One other person who feels betrayed, is Nelson Beaulieu, who also ran for Board of Education, and lost. He says he actually voted for Southerland and now feels betrayed.

“I feel like you’re denying voters the right to choose for themselves, so I’m disappointed. I’m appreciative of our local Democratic Party leadership for doing the right thing, for taking a stand. I think they’ve handled this as well as they could have,” said Beaulieu.