7 Strange Things Stephen Colbert Just Bought South Carolina Students

by Austin Petersen
By Blake Neff

Comedian Stephen Colbert declared Thursday he would fulfill hundreds of grant requests by South Carolina teachers on the education crowdfunding website DonorsChoose.org.

On the website, teachers can seek funding for projects they want to undertake in the classroom. The pricetag is usually between a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. Colbert announced that he, ScanSource and The Morgridge Family Foundation’s Share Fair Nation would team up to fund every single currently active grant request in the state of South Carolina. Overall, almost 1,000 projects at close to 400 schools will be funded, at a cost of about $800,000.

Many of the beneficiaries of Colbert’s largesse had simple requests, such as seeking money for additional books or for math instructional materials.

Some of the requests, however, were substantially more interesting:

1. $760 in cow eyeballs

Mrs. P at West Ashley Middle School in Charleston says her children went two years without a science instructor, and to improve their knowledge of anatomy, she asked for $760 to purchase 101 preserved cow eyeballs, along with the required equipment for her students to dissect them.

Austin Petersen is a homegrown Missourian with a lifelong passion for liberty. He grew up on a horse farm in Peculiar, Missouri and went on to attend Missouri State University, graduating with a degree in the Fine Arts. After developing a career in media in both New York City and Washington, D.C., he returned to Kansas City, MO, the city he now calls home. In 2016, Petersen appeared on the national stage as a candidate for president of the United States. He took second place in the crowded Libertarian primary behind Governor Gary Johnson and ahead of cyber security maverick John McAfee. During his campaign, Petersen earned many high-profile conservative endorsements, including Mary Matalin, Erick Erickson and Leon Wolf of RedState.com. Petersen also brings decades of professional experience in a wide variety of fields, from content production and media to business and political activism. He is the owner and chief executive of Stonegait LLC, a consulting firm specializing in photo and video services. He was also the director of production at FreedomWorks and an associate producer for Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show “Freedom Watch” on the Fox Business Network. Additionally, Petersen has a national following as a commentator and professional pundit. He is the founder of The Libertarian Republic, a powerful online news source for the public that receives an average of 1 million unique visits monthly and whose podcast, The Freedom Report, receives an average of one million monthly downloads. He is also a frequent contributor on television, appearing on Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, MSNBC and on dozens of local radio shows.

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