The National Center for Science Education has created the UpChucky Award, given annually to “that one creationist whose efforts in the preceding year would inspire Darwin (or any rational person) to ‘drive the porcelain bus’.”

Ray Comfort was the runner-up after producing the hilarious “Atheist’s Nightmare” video staring Kirk Cameron where the dynamic duo explain how the banana is incontrovertible proof of God’s detailed design of the universe.

But the winner… Don McLeroy, former head of the Texas State Board of Education.  McLeroy’s tireless work to defend the children from messages incongruous with his conservative Christian rewrite of reality are legend.  He is famously quoted as saying, “Someone needs to stand up to the experts!”  That’s our Don.  Because the last people we want involved in educating our children are experts.

While McLeroy has most famously been a thorn in the side of science education, he’s now lending his warped reality to Social Studies as well.   Last October McLeroy spouted to the Washington Monthly,  “We are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. The way I evaluate history textbooks is first I see how they cover Christianity and Israel. Then I see how they treat Ronald Reagan — he needs to get credit for saving the world from communism and for the good economy over the last twenty years because he lowered taxes.”

Fortunately, McLeroy lost his GOP primary to retain his seat in the upcoming election.  The good news is that he will no longer be a member of the Texas State School Board.  The bad news is that he has the rest of 2010 to work his twisted worldview into curricula.  Moreover, Don is but the most visible face of the board whose makeup is heavily slanted toward Christian Conservatism.  So we aren’t out of the woods yet.