A former Pasco County high school student has received a menacing Facebook message from an account bearing the name of School Board candidate Kenny Mathis.

The student had joined former classmates in sharing social media recollections of Mathis' hot temper while he was a Pasco music teacher, and suggested he had no place on the board. He soon received an apparent physical threat via Facebook Messenger from an account containing Mathis' name and photo.

"Let's meet face to face!!! Say what you have to say big boy!" the message said. The sender quickly followed up with, "I have that paddle ready," and commented the two could meet anywhere, any time.

"It will be worth it," the message said.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Pasco School Board candidate quit teaching job after multiple warnings, reprimands and a suspension

Asked about the messages on Monday, Mathis denied writing them. He alleged someone else had done it using a fake Facebook account that mimicked his.

However, a Facebook spokesman said there was no evidence of any such activity regarding Mathis' account, and that Mathis had made no effort, as of late Monday, to raise the issue with the social media company.

Also on Monday, Brandon Fuqua, the Land O'Lakes High grad who received the threat, again clicked on the message he got last week. It went straight to Mathis' current Facebook page, not a fake page.

A search of Facebook to find a fake Kenny Mathis page turned up nothing.

Asked to explain, Mathis took to Facebook to say the Tampa Bay Times was harassing him and posted an image of a reporter's face on the body of a weasel.

Fuqua kept screen shots of the messages he received from Mathis, and shared them with the Times.

He said he had not communicated with Mathis since leaving high school more than 14 years ago. He had to check the Messenger account to make sure it was actually Mathis.

And he said it appeared clear that Mathis was trying to intimidate him, just as band students remembered him doing while they were in school. Last week, they shared online recollections of him throwing music stands across the room and getting in a female student's face to the point that others had to intervene.

"He said, 'I'm going to bring my paddle,'" Fuqua said in reference to the message last week. He did not take up the invitation for a face-to-face meeting.

"Obviously, very threatening, but trying to be low key about it," Fuqua said.

When the Times initially asked Mathis for an explanation, the candidate sent a Facebook Messenger response from the same account that delivered the threat.

"Thank you for sending this to me," Mathis wrote. "I will let Facebook know that someone has created a fake account using my picture. Thank you for the heads up. Have a great day!"

Fuqua said he doubted the messages were fakes.

"I do not think for one second that anyone has wanted to pretend to be him," he said.

Experts suggested that Mathis' claim was highly unlikely.

"Facebook Messenger messages are riveted to that person's page," said Anne Collier, founder of a national social media help line for schools. "That message, if it linked back to his page, had to have come from him if he created that page."

Collier looked at the page that Fuqua was directed to when he clicked on the link in Mathis' messages. She noted that it was created in 2008 and filled with years of personal updates.

Mathis continued to use the page into the evening, too, though he blocked some critics from seeing it.

He had not reported misuse, either.

"We have not seen any evidence of accounts impersonating him, and we have not received any reports of impersonation," Facebook security communications manager Pete Voss said in an email. "In case Mr. Mathis thinks his account was compromised, he can regain access by following the steps at facebook.com/hacked."

Fuqua said he and his friends will not be cowed by Mathis and his supporters. They consider him unfit for any role in the school district, as evidenced by his reactions, he said.

In 19 years with the district, according to records, Mathis received positive evaluations for his classroom performance at Pasco Middle and other schools. And his programs won many awards and accolades.

But he resigned his teaching job in January amid an investigation into misuse of his work time. He had been warned in the past that such activity could lead to his termination, and he was working under a last-chance agreement.

Mathis said he was the target of Pasco Middle principal Jeff Wolff, because Mathis threatened to reveal that Wolff was having an affair with a teacher at the school.

Messages that Mathis said he sent in August 2017 to the district about Wolff arrived a day after the district had begun investigating the relationship. Wolff's wife, also a school principal, had turned in a complaint.

The district investigation found that Wolff and the teacher had not had an affair but had been talking about the possibility of having one. Wolff has been reprimanded and warned that a repeat could lead to his dismissal.

He said in an email that his situation had nothing to do with Mathis' behavior.

"There are documented concerns by myself and other assistant principals pertaining to his unprofessional behaviors long before I became the principal of Pasco Middle School," Wolff wrote. "Any accusations that I, or any administrator at this school, 'targeted' him for any reason is completely ludicrous and false."

Mathis faces incumbent Allen Altman and challenger Brian Staver in the District 1 race. Both Altman and Staver declined to comment.