OZARK, MO — A Missouri State Representative who introduced a bill to put teachers and school counselors on the sex offender list for assisting students’ gender transitions without parental involvement responded to his brother’s public criticism.
Jamie Ray Gragg’s big brother, Charles Gragg Jr., blasted him openly in the news media earlier this year. Click here for more.
Family fights in government aren’t new. Herschel Walker’s son bashed his bid for U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2022. Click here for that.
The Ozark, Missouri family’s ugly family feud rivals the Hatfield’s and McCoys. Ironic, because Jamie was a street character at Silver Dollar City for years. Maybe he can relate to a real-life family brawl after acting out similar shenanigans at the 1880s theme park! Click here for more of his background (which happens to be the CCT story that got more than 58,000 views in March 2024 because of Gragg’s controversial bill!)
If you like reading what the liberal media likes to try to do to good people like Jamie, click here. I don’t know about you, but when I read how Jamie makes liberals cry, I like him even more!
If you haven’t read the bill that caused the stir…
Here is a copy of the bill, which wasn’t voted on, but would make it a crime for teachers and school counselors to help children socially transition to another gender without parental permission.
Two taboo topics tell the tale!
In the Gragg family, the stereotypical advice to not talk about politics or religion rings true. Religion and politics are exactly what divides the Gragg family!
Jamie says his big brother, Charles Gragg Jr., is a self-proclaimed atheist, while Jamie is a Bible-believing, born-again Christian. Even their personalities are far apart. Jamie is comedic, loves laughter and humor; a past comedy performer at Silver Dollar City; while Charles, Jamie says, has to be right at all costs, and is void of compassion. A heartless beast, you might summize.
“I have nothing to do with him. I gave him 50 years. There’s nothing more to give,” Jamie told the CCT about his brother.
Four years apart, raised in the same home, yet the two are like night and day, black and white, oil and water.
They have a sister in the middle. (And no, she doesn’t get along with either of the boys!)
Interview over coffee and French toast
The Missouri legislative session ended recently. I figured I could catch up to the State Rep. from Ozark before summer scheduling kicks in. I reached out early on a Tuesday morning, May 21, 2024.
“I have time today,” Rep. Gragg told me on the phone, adding how the rest of the week was off limits due to family coming in. He’s got four kids. I’ve got four kids. I get it.
“Where can we meet?” I ask.
“Sands Cafe?” he suggests. The local coffee shop. Gossip, ball caps, coffee and grease. Okey dokey, so Ozarkey!
I order French toast and a rare cup of coffee. (Never drink it at home.) Jamie has the usual fare of most locals, biscuits smothered in gravy, crispy bacon poking beyond the plate, eggs and hash browns. He doctors his coffee with creamer. So do I. I start my recorder.
“That would be horrible to read something like what your brother said about you,” I plunge in, referring to Charles calling Jamie’s HB 2885 “hateful and malicious.”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Jamie shrugged it off. “I’m the youngest of 3. We come from 3 different perspectives.”
What the world has now, is hate, pure hate!
It’s not just Jamie’s family that shows him hate. Indeed, Jamie’s bill sparked worldwide hate. The woke world of so-called unbiased news media lost its collective mind. Click here for some of that.
“I got hate from Australia, Canada, Germany…” Rep. Gragg went down the list of all the sources of hate.
CCT: “How does it feel to be hated by so many people?”
Rep. Gragg: “Ten years ago, I would have wanted to hide. Now, I’m proud. If that’s what it takes to protect children, I’m willing to do it until the cows come home.”
For you city folk, the phrase “until the cows come home” means “for a very long time.” Because, well, once cows get out of the fence, they tend to not just come back on their own. They’re kinda dumb that way. I just saw a black cow wandering on the blacktop on Mo. 14 between Sparta and Ozark the other day, but I digress…
On the flip side, Jamie says he’s received as much if not more support and encouragement about his first of its kind bill.
“It doesn’t surprise me (about my brother)”
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Jamie said of his big brother’s open backlash against the bill. The two haven’t, spoken since their dad died in 2019. Jamie said his brother had his “15 minutes of fame” in front of mainstream media outlets, decrying his little brother’s widely publicized bill proposal.
“This legislation will cost lives and recklessly destroy others just for the sin of being compassionate,” Charles told news media mainstreamers, referring to teachers who use a different pronoun, encourage boys to act like and dress like girls, and vice versa, without their parents’ knowledge or approval.
The Gragg family moved from Southern California to Tennessee when Jamie was first grade, then to Ozark when Jamie was third grade, and his brother was seventh.
Young parents
Gragg said his parents married because his mom, 15, was pregnant. Dad was about 3 years older. “It wasn’t a proud story for either. I didn’t ask.”
“My dad did a drum solo on the front yard of my grandparents’ house, to serenade my mom when they were dating,” Jamie said. “My grandfather was old school and was less than impressed.”
The couple, high school dropouts, married in 1965. Jamie’s sister was born 2 years after his brother; Jamie 2 years after his sister, when his mom was a week shy of 20.
The family moved to Ozark when Jamie was a third grader. They weren’t religious, but Jamie loved church camp. His Uncle Harold saved coins in a coffee can all year to send Jamie to camp, where he found Jesus as his savior.
His siblings didn’t get into church camp the same as Jamie. “It wasn’t their thing,” he told the CCT, as I ate and he talked, neglecting his plate.
Jamie graduated Ozark High School, and in 1988 started coursework at SBU in Bolivar. His parents divorced during his freshman year.
He attended Eastern Gate Baptist (now Ozark Highlands Church). He got saved at age 9 and never looked back.
Brother vs. Brother
“We were never really close. My brother was very intelligent; very dominant. My sister, brother and I were like three only children, separate and not bonded,” Jamie said. Their parents were not overly demonstrative, and they were divorced when Jamie started college.
Jamie was asked about his brother’s distance from him. “He is very intelligent; a very, very dominant individual. Everybody else has to take a back seat.”
Charles was part of a Southern California culture Jamie doesn’t remember well. Two different worlds.
“I was a very complacent child,” he added.
It gets worse
Jamie and his dad bonded later in his dad’s life over annual fishing trips to Florida.
The proverbial poop hit the fan the last time all three siblings were together, after their dad died with COPD. Jamie was 50. He and his siblings were at their dad’s house in NW Springfield, squabbling over stuff. No will. No plan. No last wishes written down anywhere.
Three unfriendly siblings in a big, old, ugly house, trying to navigate their first parent’s death.
His brother accused his sister of hiding the bank account. Didn’t give time for grieving. Poor timing. “Somehow we made it through the first 24 hours without killing each other.”
“My brother brought a U-Haul the second day,” Jamie said. “It was about stuff… I’m surprised police weren’t called in,” he said, chewing on a piece of bacon. “Come to think of it, I think police were called at one point. If my sons hadn’t intervened, there might have been someone hauled off in handcuffs.”
Next time it won’t happen like that
When the come comes, Jamie said his mother has ensured a similar blow up among the siblings won’t happen upon her passing. Whew!
However, Jamie is convinced no good will come of any future interaction with either sibling. He and they haven’t spoken since their dad’s death. Jamie has his dad’s ashes. No funeral.
Good side of the family
Jamie’s mom’s parents, Ray and Carol Handy, of Ozark, housed the family when they first came to Missouri. The family got a house in Selmore. The Handy’s were helpful and compassionate. Family was everything.
Jamie has 3 sons and a daughter. They are all on their own now. Patrick has two children and twins on the way. He is in Air Force in Louisiana; Nicholas lives in Kansas City; he has a child. Christopher got married a year ago. He works locally for O’Reilly. His daughter works at a restaurant in Springfield.
What will you be known for?
After he passes, Jamie says he will known, not as a family man or a politician or church leader, but simply as “he was funny.”
“You have to get away from the seriousness. If you don’t sit back and see the humor, you’re going to have a hard life.”
Jamie enjoyed 15 years as a train robber and street character at Silver Dollar City. He still keeps up with that group. “To me, laughter is so important.”
Even as a state representative, Jamie causes laughter in Jefferson City on both sides of the aisle. “People know me as a lighthearted legislator.”
If the obvious is pointed out in a serious situation, it can be memorable and rewarding, he says.
It’s a challenge to maintain close friendships with such a divided political landscape, but Jamie does have a few Democrat associates that he respects on certain issues.
“Everybody says you should reach out to both sides. I say you need to know who people are. Know the insurance experts. Have respect enough to talk to everyone. If we are all enemies, nothing will get done.”
Speaking of things not getting done, IP Reform should have gotten passed, Jamie told the CCT. IP reform would set limits on the clipboard people hired from out of state interest groups to push ballot issues that don’t help Missouri.
Jamie is running for Assistant Majority Floor Leader next year, to assist Floor Leader Alex Riley (R-Springfield).
Politics and Religion
“We should let our faith control our decision making,” Jamie concludes. “Our faith should drive our politics.”
If we have a spiritual country, why not have a spiritual government?
“Pastors should step up and make sure people know what’s going on. We’re so disengaged, we have legalized marijuana, and now it’s being mixed with deadly drugs, and people’s brains aren’t developing during their young adult years.”
Abortion rights are being pushed on Missourians because we aren’t aware. Gambling is coming to the ballot as well.
Next year, we need Initiative Petition Reform. Out of state organizations are pushing abortion, and other legislation we don’t need, by collecting signatures. We need to limit that activity. Why should we let big city people run the rural side of our state?”