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By SHANNON BURKE
April 12, 2005
BOONVILLE - Sign-carrying protesters greeted a controversial educator who on Monday night publicly unveiled a proposal to open the shuttered Kemper Military School as a new school for troubled teens.
With messages such as "Say no to child torture in Boonville" and "All children deserve basic human rights," five protesters stood outside the Boonville City Hall chambers as brothers Randall and Russell Hinton shared their plans with 75 spectators.
Golden Pond Investments Ltd., a Utah-based holding company, wants to lease the property from the city of Boonville, which purchased the abandoned school in 2003, one year after it closed.
The Hintons - who would sublease the property from Golden Pond Investments and operate the school - want to open another military school for male cadets in grades 7 through 12.
Some Boonville residents are concerned because Robert Lichfield, a corporate officer of Golden Pond Investments, is founder of the World Wide Association of Specialty Schools and Programs, a company that operates schools for troubled teens throughout the U.S. and in several foreign countries.
A preliminary background investigation by the Boonville Police Department reported some of the World Wide Association programs have faced allegations of abuse, and Randall Hinton has worked at several of the World Wide Association schools.
Lesli Racker, a Columbia resident opposed to the project, read a sworn statement from the mother of a student who attended Tranquility Bay, a World Wide Association school in Jamaica.
The statement detailed "daily torture" and physical abuse the student suffered at Tranquility Bay, some of it allegedly at the hands of Randall Hinton. Racker said she obtained the statement directly from the student's mother, a friend of hers.
Randall Hinton did not address the charges, saying only that the meeting was not the proper venue in which to discuss the accusations. He did offer a defense of his work, though.
"I have never been charged with a crime," Randall Hinton said. At the same time, he added that pepper spray - which had been used at World Wide Association facilities according to the background check by the Boonville Police Department - would not be used for discipline at the proposed school in Boonville.
Russell Hinton, who for most of the meeting remained in the background, said he has worked at boarding schools in Utah. He did not specify whether those schools were WWASP affiliates.
Randall Hinton also attempted to distance himself from Lichfield.
"I've been running my own school for a year and a half," Randall Hinton said, referring to White River Academy in Puerto Rico.
Hinton does not have a college degree, and many residents expressed concerns about his qualifications to run the school.
"I think it's wonderful that these gentlemen want to open Kemper, but I see no credentials whatsoever to run Kemper Military School," said Tom Maxwell, a 1955 Kemper alumnus who lives in Boonville.
Before its closing, Kemper was the oldest military school west of the Mississippi.
And the Boonville Police Department released a statement on March 24 expressing concern about the safety of the Kemper campus.
The school would enroll students with behavioral problems, and several residents echoed the Police Department's concerns about Kemper cadets escaping the grounds and stealing cars to leave.
Ned Beach, president of the city Industrial Development Authority, said the advisory group will bring the proposal to the Boonville City Council meeting on Monday, April 18.