When two boys were caught acting up at Matanuska Christian School in Palmer, Alaska, principal Steve Unfreid knew it was up to him to change their ways. The crime committed by the two seniors, aged 17 and 18, was kissing girls where younger students could see them. Unfreid didn't want the boys expelled, so instead he called them and their teacher down to the school basement, took off his belt and had the teacher flog him until the boys admitted they were wrong.

Unfreid said the idea came to him after he remembered how he'd cured his son's chronic lying by having the lad smack him with a wooden ladle, but says the method shows a Christianity too radical for some to accept - including the school board that voted unanimously to fire him.

During his tenure, Unfreid had pushed the board to admit a married student, taken troubled teens into his home and tried to heal a girl's sprained ankle by laying on hands.

» Scott Saxon