The Olympia Washington Kiwanis members and their friends have cost the Washington State taxpayers over $50 million dollars (so far), because of their willful ignorance of long term, merciless and well known, child abuse that occurred at the Olympia Kiwanis Boys Ranch.

October 2006 note: This Olympia Kiwanis stuff is old news. I've left this information on the web, because I like the thought that someone will say to one of these Kiwanis friends or members: "Grandma, (Grandpa), are you still friends with those Olympia Kiwanians?"

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   City of Olympia 900 Plum Street, Olympia, Wash. 98507-1967
Council: David A Skramstad Mayor, Mary Lux Mayor Pro Tem, Nina Carter, Rex Derr, Mark Foutch, Holly Gadbaw, Sandra Romero, City Manager Richard C. Cushing

    M E M 0 R A N D U H
    TO: Thurston County Prosecutor's Office, Criminal  Division
  FROM: J. Reiko Cushman, City Prosecutor
  DATE: September 23, 1992
  RE: OK Boys Ranch Referral

    At the request of Chief Wurner of the Olympia Police Department, I have reviewed the enclosed files for possible referral of charges on failure-to report on the part of some or all of the OK Boys Ranch staff members. After  review of the file, I recommend that one or more counts of failure to report, RCW 26.44.080, be charged against Laura  Rambo as principal, and Thomas VanWoerden, and Collette Queener via accomplice liability.
    A complete review of the file shows that all of the subordinate staffers, current and no longer working at the Ranch, can testify that a high level of sexual activity among the Ranch residents was common knowledge among the staff at the Ranch,and an ongoing topic of conversation at group meetings held regularly over a long period of time.  Sexual activity not technically criminal (i.e. between juveniles close in age) was addressed chiefly by group conversations within the Ranch. Quarterly reports regarding the boys' individual progress referenced sexual activity only in outline terms, generally touching on sexual activity that had occurred months before the reports were submitted. Boys as young as aged ten were assigned roommates who were considerably older, for example, -------- aged twelve, was a roommate of ------- aged 17. --------was coerced by to provide oral  sex  to him on a regular basis. Likewise, the staff allowed the boys to have "sleepovers" during weekend nights, i.e., to sleep in each other's rooms. Most of the boys were sex crime  victims; all of them were abuse or neglect victims.
  ------- came to the Ranch with a serious known sexual problem making him extremely likely to engage in aggressive sexual behavior with the other children.  The other boys complained repeatedly to the staff about ------- sexual behavior toward them, yet the staff allowed ------ to sleep in the other boys' rooms, and to have access otherwise to the other children, without adequate safeguards or supervision.
    On multiple occasions, staff members either caught boys engaging in sexual activity with each other or suspected the same. Although they made reports to their superiors either directly or through daily logs, they did no more on these occasions than to tell the boys to separate, sometimes finding them together again in the same evening. The only follow-up to these incidents was in-house group conversations.
    The subordinate staffers, many of then entirely untrained and unqualified to care for abused children (a number also being recovering substance abusers) were directed by the three above-named supervisors that all incidents of sexual activitv between the boys, criminal or otherwise, were to be reported to the administrative staff by notation in the staff logs, which were reviewed daily by Rambo and Queener daily, and by VanWoerden intermittently. Queener spoke to VanWoerden to keep him apprised on the information in the logs. The subordinate staff was directed not to make reports themselves to either CPS or law enforcement. Such reports, if any, were to be made solely by the administrative staff.
    The staff was given no formal direction, in the form of training manuals or otherwise, in how to deal with sexually (or otherwise) abused children. One staff member recalled that on his first day he was told by VanWoerden that only a few things were expected from him: "Don't fuck the kids, don't beat the kids." Otherwise, the institution was  basically entirely without structure or programming. The overall picture given by the staff is of an entirely chaotic environment in which the boys largely behaved as they pleased, and criminal behavior not only among themselves but also against members of the surrounding community was often not addressed or reported.
    The three above-named staff administrators censured various subordinate staffers for raising issues about sexual activity among the boys.  VanWoerden, for example, admonished subordinate staffers not to discuss these incidents with outsiders because it would "give the Ranch a bad name." (Vanwoerden denied any knowledge of sexual activity prior to the report made to police around July 1, 1992. This is clearly not true.)
    Laura Rambo reads the log entries made by other staffers and is the contact person for the boys' case workers and CPS. Rambo was informed by staffer Bob Alexander of an orgy involving a great deal of criminal sexual interaction between multiple children, as well as an anal injury resulting in bleeding inflicted upon -------- aged eleven. Collette Queener was also specifically informed of this incident. Rambo called Miriam Madison, CPS caseworker supervisor, but did not tell her the ages of the children involved, did not tell her of the injury, and did not disclose the names to Madison. Instead, she gave a very vague account of what happened, and indicated she would investigate further and follow up. She did not. This incident is the most obvious and easily proven as a criminal charge of failure to report.
     It is my understanding that funding for the Ranch program is tied to the category of damage that the resident boys are assessed at. In other words, the more damaged the resident, the higher the funding rate. The picture that emerges from the evidence is that unqualified people were hired as subordinate staffers in order to make up the requisite number of staff bodies present to residents in order to meet the licensing guidelines. Minimal or no treatment was provided for the children, and reports of sexual and other criminal activity of the children  was suppressed by the administrative staff in order to ensure that the program was not closely scrutinized. The actual atmosphere in which the boys live is chaotic, without controls or structure, and basically permitted a gross level of abuse of every description to be perpetuated among the residents. The environment, far from being a beneficial, therapeutic one, is an environment likely to develop and increase activity among these boys, particularly sexually predatory behavior. The Board of the Ranch and the Kiwanis group was wilfully deceived as to the state of affairs at the Ranch by the supervising staff.

Here's Olympia Detective Darrell Nobles' Dec. 15, 1992 report investigation stating that there he believes that there is enough information to charge some members of the OKBR with "failure to report a criminal violation."

Until Oct 1999, I believed that the Kiwanians and their friends were guilty of careless neglect or callous indifference. After hearing frightening audio depositions from some of the abused kids, I now believe that these people were involved with an "active collaboration with evil". The OKBR staff was apparently actively involved in long-term molestation and sadistic abuse of these kids. The Kiwanians and their friends could/should have stopped the abuse.

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OKBR people statements to the Wa. St. Patrol(informative, professional, evasive, amusing)
Here's a long summary of the Wa.St.Patrol O.K.B.R report
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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

There were many obvious and long-term warnings about the 1970-94 child abusing Olympia Kiwanis Boys Ranch.