The governor and founder of the program stood on a stage together to celebrate more than 200 graduating seniors less than two months before Parson vetoed the funding.
Officials in Missouri prepared to publicly applaud a journalist who identified a security weakness until the governor changed his mind and labeled the writer a "hacker," threatening both a lawsuit and prosecution.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education planned on thanking the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for finding a recent data vulnerability but the Parson administration did not use the note of gratitude.