STATEMENT OF VIRGIL CLARKSON December 28, 1995 95-687
    I am Sergeant Glenn Cramer of the Washington State Patrol, Internal Affairs Section. The date is December 29, 1995. The time is 6:05 p.m. This is a statement of dictation notes from an interview Sergeant Steve Davis and I conducted on December 28, 1995 at 10:00 a.m. We met with Virgil Clarkson at the Internal Affairs Office.
    Clarkson told us he's been a member of the Kiwanis since 1968. He'd been a member of the boys ranch Board of Directors since 1974. It was a nine member board in which they would all serve for three years then alternate with a one year leg before they could serve on it again. Clarkson admitted that the people in the Kwanis were influential people. Giving a little history, he said the boys ranch was started by Superior Court Judge Hewitt Henry. The property was donated by G. I. Griffith. Henry Maxwell was also a founding person who donated some material for the building of the boys ranch. Apparently Henry had seen kids come through his court and felt they needed some help. So the Kiwanis went on to develop this home.
    Clarkson said even though there were influential people on the board, he didn't know if these people exercised any political orjudicial influence concerning DSHS. He said in the summer of 1992 they met as many as two times a week after learning about the orgy. Clarkson said he remembered having several meetings with people of DSHS concerning the situation at.the OKBR. He said they met three to four times at the boys ranch facility and met once, maybe twice, at the DSHS Headquarters. Then he indicated they met another time at a church over on the West side which was the neutral site. Clarkson told us that Jean Soliz was present when they met at DSHS HQ for the two meetings, and that she was the assistant secretary at the time. Two other people he remembers being at the meeting were Art Cantrall and Mark Redal. He also attended a meeting at the main DSHS building when OK members Jeff Lane, Bob Van Schoorl, Jane Skinner, and Bob Denning were present. Clarkson said the gist of the meetings with DSHS when Soliz was there, there was a move of afoot by DSHS to take away the contract of OKBR group home. At one of the meetings, he's not sure which one, the DSHS people reviewed the report the Olympia Police Department completed. The purpose was to let the board of directors know about the police report.
        Clarkson remembers seeing a police report in July of 1992. He said after he and other board members reviewed it they had great doubts about the authenticity of the report and felt it was highly prejudicial. The board also felt it was not to their cause. Clarkson said the report had been made available by the officer, but he was not sure how it came into their possession. Clarkson indicated he was aware of a second report, but doesn't know how they got it. It was circulated among the board while meeting at the church, and they discussed it until one or two o'clock in the morning. He felt the allegations in the report were very severe charges. Clarkson went on to say the allegations were upsetting to him because he had a different perspective of the OKBR. He visited the ranch often and had taken the boys to pizza parties and ball games. The wives had gone out approximately once a month with a birthday cake for anybody who had a birthday during that month. So he just had a different perception of the boys and how the facility was run compared to what was documented in the police report.
    He told us that if the circumstance documented in the report were true. he would be totally remised for not knowing about the situation. He indicated that Van Woerden was removed as the director and Queener was selected as the interim director. He felt if they had voted on keeping Queener as the director he probably would have voted against it. However, they had to make some decisions during that time on whether to save the ranch. There was a great investment as far as time they had put into it because this was a dream of the founding fathers. So they called Queener to ask if she would take on the director position temporarily.
    Clarkson said he had some concerns because the type and quality of kids had changed from when the ranch was first operating. He felt it might not have been a viable project for them to undertake. He said the first meeting he went to with DSHS, they originally had boys ranging from seven to seventeen. However, because of the type of boys being housed there, they felt it would be better to reduce the span of age. So they negotiated with DSHS to reduce the ages to twelve through fourteen. He indicated that during the second meeting Soliz gave them an ultimatum to get rid of Van Woerden. That's when they decided they needed someone who had experience with the ranch. He knew Queener was very close to Van Woerden and felt she may not have wanted to take the position because of it. That's when they called Queener asking her if she wanted to take over the position temporarily. Clarkson was not sure how this temporary basis worked int o a permanent position.
    We asked him if he ever had any conversations with Pat Sutherland concerning the Olympia Police Department investigation. He said Sutherland was a friend of his, and he purposely avoided any conversations with him about the situation because he did not want to embarrass him. He also knew that Sutherland didn't have any love for the boys ranch, and he's probably even taken this to his grave.
    Clarkson was asked if he knew of any Kiwanians who had foster boys placed with them from OKBR placement program. He thought several members had, but the only person he could remember was a retired teacher from Olympia High School, Les Metzger.
     He indicated that approximately three weeks ago he received a call from someone representing the AG's office about the Forbes Lake land issue. This person wanted to know if the property had been sold. He said he was not sure. Later he talked to Charles Shelan, the executive director of the Youth Services. He indicated they had tried to sell the property and pass it on to another entity. However, there was a stipulation in the deed stating the property had to be used by the Olympia Kiwanis . When the Kiwanis originally had the property donated to them, they tried to develop it by putting a road through it. The neighbors would not allow them to have access to the property nor did they want the boys there. He indicated they were given the property by two men named ---- and -----, who he said were gay. They had been foster parents, and at that time there was no rule against them being homosexual. He thought the boy was seven years old. While at the bus stop one day, the boy assaulted a girl, then left her in the bushes. In his opinion, the property was donated to the Kiwanis because ---- and ----- conscious bothered them. Clarkson felt it was due to their lack of supervision for the foster boy, and the fact that it had taken away from the Kiwanis Club. He said he has since lost track of the land, and last he'd heard, just prior to the OKBR closing, the land was sold for 125,000 dollars. He thought ---- and, ---- may have had some pressure on them by other members of the Kiwanis to amend the deed agreement in order for the property to be sold.
    Clarkson told us he has not been a member of the Board of Directors since 1992. He felt there had been a tremendous investment including a lot of sweat, tears, and dreams he's put into the facility, and he would support it within limits, but he was spent. Clarkson said what had caused the boys ranch to go out of business may have happened for the best (he didn't elaborate on exactly what he meant). He said within the last several months there has been a real hush-hush attitude among the member of the Kiwanians. This code of silence where they have been attacked by the news media as being responsible for the situation at the OKBR, he said he doesn't like it and that he should speak up in defense of the Kiwanians reputation. Clarkson said if he was to meet anyone of the boys and they could prove the allegations were true, he would feel responsible. Clarkson said he felt remorse for the boys. He felt the Kiwanians had attempted to help the community, but in the last few years the type and quality of the boys housed at the ranch was more then what could be handled. Clarkson told us that the ranch received approximately 52 dollars a day per bed by DSHS, and he thought the ranch's annual budget was between 475 to 500 thousand dollars.
      Shortly after they became aware of the orgy in July of 1992, the board of directors broke up into teams and went off to interview community members. It was his responsibility to interview school people. He interviewed the principal at Reeves Middle School and could not remember the director who went with him, but he was a financial advisor. We asked him if it was Bill Stikker; he said no. The only other person we knew who was a financial advisor and on the board, was Rick Miller.
    Clarkson said the first time they met with Soliz, he got the impression that she couldn't see anything DSHS had done wrong. He said now that she's been reading the papers she has since seen some of the problems in DSHS concerning the OKBR. He went on to tell us, when they met with Soliz, if the findings in the '88 audit and the police report were true, she should have closed the OKBR. However, she didn't; she just negotiated the release of Van Woerden. He said it was kind of like an illness. The OKBR and the board may have been bad, but they were not terminal.
    Clarkson went on to tell us that it was the perception of the board that "there was no good blood" between the Olympia Police Department and the OKBR. He concluded by saying he felt the allegation just were not true.

Below is an e-mail I received from a former Olympia, Washington resident.

From: ~~~~~~~~@aol.com
To: Louis Bloom manaco@whidbey.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 11:34 AM
Subject: OKBR
Just came across your pages and felt the urge to respond... In the early 80's (81-83) I was at the OKBR frequently as a young kid walking to/from school, I became friends with some of the boys. At one point a small boy confided to me that he was being raped by another boy in the home. The abusing boy talked about it openly!
Days later I walked the victim to OPD where we both gave statements. Later that evening I began to receive these incredibly threatening phone calls from a woman employee of the ranch who's name I believe was Paulette at my home. She kept calling over and over screaming at me calling me names. It was horrible. I thought I was helping someone. Nothing came of it. Then all these years later, it all comes out ... one of the boys that I had known there left as a young adult and still couldn't get it together, he eventually killed himself. As an adult now I don't often think back to those times but it still saddens me. All those boys that needed a safe nurturing place to be, and how many of them were better off for having been taken there? It's not about money. It cost these boys their lives, their souls, their trust. Those people who knew, who didn't care, they should feel such shame. Just my opinion.

From: louis a bloom manaco@whidbey.net
To: ~~~~~~~@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 28, 1999 7:30 PM
Subject: Re: OKBR
thanks for your e-mail. from what i've read, dshs, the olympia police department, and other "authorities" didn't consider child on child rape to be against the law. it was considered "normal experimentation". The "paulette" you mention, may have been Collette Queener who was an assistant director at the OKBR. Collette, OKBR Director Tom Van Woerdan, and OKBR counselor Laura Rambo Russell were ineptly charged by Wa. St. with "criminal mistreatment for failing to stop abuse". The charges were dismissed by Thurston County Judge Daniel Berschauer on technicalities. The lawyer who represented Collette Queener said, (Nov. 14, 1996 Olympian), that it was a "witch hunt", and that " a more innocent person (than Queener) you could not have for a client. She's an ex-nun ..... I don't see how you could view her in an evil or negative light."
I congratulate you for doing the right thing, when all those adults looked the other way. I repeat on most pages that the " OKBR has cost the Washington State taxpayers over $35 million dollars (so far)", because I think most people don't care about the kids involved, but they may care that it has cost them (taxpayers) money.
louis bloom

manaco@whidbey.net