The Real Mrs. Semler

Semler says she's uncomfortable seeing her name in the paper every day. She thinks citizens should stand up for their beliefs but doesn't want to be the activist earning the headlines. She gets a weary tone in her voice when she says this issue has taken up all her time and energy — time and energy taken from her husband, who spent part of the summer in the hospital.

Days after her appointment, Semler reportedly told the Star, "I wish you wouldn't make a big deal out of this." She reportedly told a writer with the conservative Web site World Net Daily that she didn't want to engage in an interview, saying, "Let's let it cool down for a while."

Over the past month, though, the grandmother has been less shy.

On September 16, Semler called The Kris Kobach Show, a program on KMBZ 980 hosted by the University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor who is chairman of the Kansas Republican Party. Kobach had opened that day's program with a commentary criticizing La Raza for its issues with Semler, but he seemed surprised when Semler dialed in. She agreed with Kobach that the whole affair was "lunacy" and that the Hispanic organizations were overreacting.

"You know, the people who are complaining are the people that I will be doing things for," she said with a hint of indignation.

She defended the Minutemen, saying she didn't believe opponents' claims that the anti-illegal-immigration group had engaged in violence. "Show me a police report," she said.

Two days later, Semler shared her views with Laura Ingraham's national audience. She told the conservative radio host that she believes in following the law. "So if that doesn't agree with some people, then I guess that's their problem," she said. She added that La Raza pulling its convention from Kansas City "only hurts their own people."

Not that she believed the national organization would abandon its original plans. "I think it's extortion, and I don't think that will happen," she told Nick Haines, on a segment for KCPT Channel 19's Week in Review.

Semler doesn't rule out a trip to the border, either. In some ways, the fallout has been worth it if it helps make her point about illegal immigration.

"You have to say this is wrong and stand up to it," she says. "I've had a lot of support, and maybe people will stand up, maybe they'll research [the issue] a little bit and pay more attention. So many people are so busy making a living, they don't know what's going on."

Besides, she has an outlet for when she gets fed up with all the politics.

"I just go out there [in the garden] and yank a bunch of weeds out."

This year on September 11, Frances Semler was hailed as a hero.

To commemorate the victims of the 2001 attacks, the Heart of America Minuteman Civil Defense Corps gathered in a small room adjacent to the driver's license office in Mission. Semler sat attentively in the second row, wearing a relaxed gaze and a white T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag.

Much of the meeting was the typical recruitment pitch: Join the Minutemen to help immigration officials identify illegals and demand that politicians enforce the law.

Hayes told the group to study up on La Raza, learn its "agenda." They're the type of folks who "knock on the doors of 73-year-old grandmothers," Hayes said. "They got six to eight guys in a car, barreling out like the DEA on a drug raid. We don't do that. They do."

Hayes cited an early September poll on the Star's Web site in which nearly 80 percent (of more than 650 people who chose to participate) said Semler should not resign from the parks board.

When Hayes finished, he introduced Richard Fatherly, a retired broadcaster who is the group's media liaison. In his authoritative radio voice, Fatherly urged the group to write letters of support to the mayor, lauding his appointment and retention of Semler.

Fatherly read from his own letter to Funkhouser. "Mrs. Semler is an asset to your administration in bringing back the luster to Kansas City's quality of life," he boomed. "I get the feeling that you've seen through the ruse of the La Rrrrrrrraza" — he paused, moving his arm with a salsa dancer's flourish and waiting for the group's laughter to subside — "attempt to muscle in on Kansas City's tourism and convention business."

From the back row, local Minuteman Rod Will, who runs a small trucking business, had another idea for dealing with City Hall. Though Funkhouser might deserve praise, he said, City Council members such as Beth Gottstein, who pushed for Semler's removal, should be reprimanded.