FAYETTEVILLE — Athletic Director Barry Gebhart resigned Friday following his arrest earlier this week in connection with Internet stalking of a child.
Gebhart submitted a letter to Superintendent Vicki Thomas stating he was resigning effective immediately. Thomas accepted the resignation.
“We have taken every step available to us under Arkansas law to deal with this situation and have followed the procedures to the letter, including the Arkansas Teacher Fair Dismissal Act. It is now a police matter, and we are cooperating with them fully,” according to a statement by Thomas.
High School Principal Steve Jacoby was named athletic director on an interim basis, said Alan Wilbourn, public information officer.
The four assistant athletic directors may have additional duties assigned to them as well, Wilbourn said.
There was no announcement on when the athletic director’s position would be filled permanently.
Gebhart was driving a district-owned car at the time of his arrest. Wilbourn said the car was not assigned to Gebhart but he was allowed to use it for out-of-town trips to athletic events. The FHS volleyball team played a game in Bentonville at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Gebhart, 50, was arrested shortly after 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Pinnacle Hills Promenade in Rogers. He was released Wednesday from the Benton County Jail on $75,000 bond. His arraignment is scheduled for 8 a.m., Dec. 2 in Benton County Circuit Judge Robin Green’s court.
Gebhart was the subject of an undercover investigation by the Benton County Sheriff’s Office Cyber Crime Unit. Gebhart communicated for about two weeks with a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl who was a sheriff’s deputy posing as the girl. The two exchanged emails and photographs and had arranged a meeting Tuesday night at the shopping center.
Thomas placed Gebhart on paid administrative leave when she learned about the arrest. Thomas was Gebhart’s direct supervisor. His annual salary was $101,917, according to school district officials.
He worked for the district since 1986 as a teacher, assistant coach and high school boys basketball coach. Gebhart took over as head coach in 1993 and won the 2009 state championship. He was named athletic director in 2009 after the departure of longtime director Dick Johnson. He is a 1981 graduate of Fayetteville High School.
There was no immediate indication if Gephart intended to surrender his teaching license to the state Department of Education. If convicted, the state will take the license.
Deputy Keshia Guyll, spokesman for the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, said the car has been returned to the district. Gebhart’s district cell phone, along with other electronic devices in his possession are being investigated by the detectives, Guyll said.
Green barred Gebhart from unsupervised contact with minors and from using computers or accessing the Internet as conditions of release on bond.
Gebhart and his wife Maridith Gebhart were involved in a domestic disturbance March 11, 2008. During that incident Gebhart told police his wife kicked him in the groin and broke a chair over his arm as they fought over a computer. Gebhart’s wife told police she suspected her husband was looking at Internet pornography on a computer in the family’s home, but was not sure because he would not show her what he was looking at. Police determined Gebhart was a victim and arrested his wife on domestic battery and domestic assault charges. Court records show no charges were filed in connection with the incident.
In December 1994, Gebhart was involved in a car wreck in which an assistant Fayetteville basketball coach, Ramon Bradford, was killed and Gebhart, who was head coach of the men’s basketball team at the time, was seriously injured.
Bradford, 25, was a passenger in a 1992 Ford Escort driven by Gebhart. Police said Gebhart and Bradford were eastbound, returning to Fayetteville from Siloam Springs, about 9:30 p.m. when Gebhart apparently lost control of the car and slid on wet pavement across the center line, striking a westbound Toyota pickup driven by James M. Carte, 25, of Prairie Grove. Carte and three passengers in his pickup were slightly injured.
Gebhart’s brother, Gregory Lee Gebhart, 54, pleaded guilty in February 2009 to four counts of distributing, possessing or viewing child pornography after police found multiple videos and still images of a child engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
The arrest was the result of an online undercover operation by Wyoming police to identify people using peer-to-peer software online to swap child porn on the Internet.
Gregory Gebhart, of West Fork, was sentenced to 20 years at the Arkansas Department of Correction with 10 years suspended and ordered to register as a sex offender and complete a sex offender counseling program. He has been released from prison.