How did I get to the place where I am now, writing about these things?
First, the disclaimer:
- This all pre-Herschend, and may have played a part in the decision to sell, considering the published words after the 2021 talks were: “Gary Norton made one thing clear: Silverwood Theme Park is not for sale.” Link. I would also venture to say that Herschend is very unlikely to have known.
- We love Silverwood and what it brings to the area, and more specifically, what it’s brought to Evanna since we moved here. It still is one of her favorite places, though decreasingly so since the changes post-2023 season.
Now back to the post and question at hand. To quote the best movie ever made: “Let me explain! No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
Because it’s not a simple straightforward answer. It just sort of happened.
We moved to North Idaho in June of 2021. We might have visited SW once or twice that season, but we did season passes from then on. We spent a ton of time there during the 2022 season–so much so that Evanna became a little bit of a celebrity there.
In the 2023 season, we applied for and were selected to be in the Silverwood Conductor social media program. [As an aside, the Silverwood Express site has been offline–at the time of posting–for at least several days. Maybe they’re scrubbing the other posts of mine.🤷🏼♂️ Link to screenshot of the one post they coincidentally scrubbed after I posted about an accessibility issue in the 2025 season…]
These picture illustrate another factor: Evanna loved the cast members on the Entertainment side, and they seemed to take a liking to her as well. And as her dad, *I* loved seeing how well she was treated, and grew to really appreciate the cast not just as good performers, but good people.
We’ve kept in touch with many (almost all) of them over the years since. We were even specifically introduced to the families of two of the cast that were visiting during the 2023 season. That was–and is–a huge honor to have that kind of connection with the cast. That factor is important later.
But it was during our time in the Conductor program when I began noticing things. Little things. Little things that by themselves would have amounted to nothing. For the longest part of that season, I really didn’t even think much of these little things. But they started clicking for me after Evanna’s accident on the train lift.
The initial reaction by cast and by the immediate Entertainment supervisor was EXCELLENT. Textbook for how a venue should respond–both in action and in word. I was so appreciative that I wanted to write a non-Conductor post about the it. A very positive experience that would have been a very positive post.
But as talked about in that post, the reaction to me wanting to write a positive post about the incident was bizarre. After some back and forth of me clarifying what it was I wanted to write, and outside of the Conductor posts, the reply I received:
Surface level, it doesn’t seem like much at all, but in context of the email thread, it was threatening. The desire for control of the narrative to the point of not even wanting a complimentary post about how well the cast responded opened my eyes to some of the management decisions. [That’s even before some of the petty things from the 2024 and 2025 seasons…]
In the months that followed that season, serendipitously, former cast members began telling me about issues they experienced or saw, or how they were (mis)treated. Turns out that so few people were willing to even remotely criticize Silverwood that even the slightest amount drew attention. (We’ll get to why that might be in a future post, and it’ll get linked here.)
Those kinds of contacts continued to this year, including a former cast I’d never met, who worked at SW prior to us moving here.
The stories combined to paint a picture of troubling actions and decisions over a long period of time that affected many former cast members, Isaiah included. As more of these stories were relayed to me, it quickly became clear that I had to make a difficult choice about what to do with the information.
There’s a quote from Desmond Tutu:
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
If I cannot be neutral with the information, I either have to hide it away and be silent (and thus side with the injustice, allowing it to continue) or I have to speak about it. And in light of Isaiah’s passing, and him no longer able to tell his own story in his own words, there’s really no choice. Additionally, as a Christian, I have an obligation to be a voice to the voiceless when it is within my power to do so.
Point of clarification
I have had to carefully differentiate my personal dislikes, things that I disagreed with, etc from the other, bigger issues. My things, as I wrote above, were small comparatively. But looking back, I believe they were signs of the bigger issues.
Think of it like a water pipe that’s been around a while, but hasn’t really been maintained. There’s some corrosion visible on the outside. There’s some valves that haven’t been checked. Flow isn’t what it used to be. But nobody has really done much of anything about it, though management knows about the age and lack of maintenance. Then there’s the smallest of leaks here and there. They don’t amount to much on their own, so they are left alone. Maybe one is patched here and there when an outside person notices and says something. But those leaks, even though they are small, are all telling a bit of the story about the pipe that seemingly everyone is ignoring: the condition of the inside of that pipe, and its overall functionality, it in serious peril.
Remember, we’re not really talking about water leaks. We’re talking about little signs that point to bigger issues. My observations were the little leaks, and the experiences of other people that I learned about, Isaiah included, are much bigger issues that almost nobody sees. The leaks still matter, but the corrosion and corruption of the pipe is the bigger issue.
So what am I after?
Valid question, and one I’ve had to seriously consider for over a year now. And I can now say that my only aim is to put the information out. The repercussions are not for me to decide.
Now…if I had my druthers (and that is a word that needs to make a comeback), it’s going to become very clear that there are some individuals, by the decisions they made and the things they knew about and allowed to continue and/or covered up for years, should not be associated with Silverwood, but are currently there. You cannot trim the mold off the bread and then put it back into the same bag and not expect the mold to continue to rapidly spread.
I’ll take that a step further even: if I were to publish the entirety of information I have–including the unverified info that I absolutely believe is true–the public response would look something like this:
Ultimately, in either case, it’s out of my hands.
TLDR: it just happened. Wasn’t planned. Wasn’t necessarily even wanted. But with any potentially important information, there is a responsibility: first to look into the truth; second to corroborate the truth; third to speak or publish the truth. To withhold truth that you know, or have been told and has been corroborated, especially in the face of injustice, is to be complicit in that injustice. I cannot do that.
Buckle up. In Friday’s post we talk about the characters involved. After that, the revelations begin.
–S.
PS My contact info is at the bottom left of each page in the About section in case you have information to potentially add.
