He never wrote that public education was a Ku Klux Klan conspiracy to suppress African-Americans, he said. And when he saw that retired investor Rex Sinquefield last week named one his columns in the Unterrified Democrat as the source of such a claim, Voss got on his computer and pulled up the 2007 article Sinquefield was referring to.

"I hope the Post-Dispatch will consider running my column," Voss wrote.

He attached a copy of the column Sinquefield had cited during a policy speech Thursday at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. It begins with a fictional account of a KKK grand dragon in the 1960s trying to cobble together a plan to suppress African-Americans. The Klansman met with members of a Washington think tank who advised him to put liberals in charge of school districts. The liberals, according to this fictional account, would do the Klan's work, and public schools would deteriorate.

Sinquefield angered the Missouri National Education Association when he linked public education with the white supremacy group. This is what he said:

"There was a column written and I hope I don't offend anyone," he said. "There was a published column by a man named Ralph Voss, who was a former judge in Missouri. He now owns and writes for a newspaper in Central Missouri called the Unterrified Democrat -- what a name -- and it's in Osage County, Missouri, and he starts off and it's something like this, he said, ‘A long time ago, decades ago, the Ku Klux Klan got together and said how can we really hurt the African-American children permanently? How can we ruin their lives? And what they designed was the public school system.'"

The following day, Sinquefield apologized for his comments, calling them "ill-timed and inappropriate."

"I apologize for my reference to a quote from Ralph Voss of the Unterrified Democrat," he said in a statement. "It is my sincere hope that this does not distract us from the important mission of helping all children access a high-quality education."

Voss in an interview wouldn't comment on Sinquefield's remarks at Lindenwood, or the apology that followed. But his words were misconstrued, he said. "I said nothing of the sort."