BRANSON (MO)
St. Louis Public Radio [St. Louis MO]
May 12, 2026
By Luke Nozicka
The CEO of Kanakuk Kamps, a Christian summer camp in southwest Missouri plagued by a history of sexual abuse, is said to be retiring later this year.
In a letter to camp families, Joe White, 77, reportedly said he would retire Aug. 31 after decades of overseeing the camp that has brought thousands of children to Branson. He cited medical treatments that followed his leukemia diagnosis in 2000.
“Thirty-five anesthetized surgeries later, it is time to pass the baton to the next very capable generation,” White wrote in the letter, which was posted online by D Magazine in Dallas, Texas.
Kanakuk and White did not respond to requests for comment by The Midwest Newsroom.
White’s announcement comes almost a year after Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill — named after a former Kanakuk camper — into law that voids non-disclosure agreements reached in child sexual abuse cases. It was named after Trey Carlock, who was sexually abused by former Kanakuk director Peter Newman. Carlock signed an NDA and in 2019 died by suicide.
Carlock’s sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, called White’s retirement letter “disappointing” — it omitted the “very publicly known child sexual abuse” that occurred at the camp under his leadership, she said.
“This isn’t retirement; it’s a cop out,” Phillips said in a statement to The Midwest Newsroom, adding there has not been real accountability for the abuse survivors. “This is yet another PR move, and survivors are neither surprised nor appeased by Joe White stepping back cowardly.”
Phillips has been advocating for other states to pass their own “Trey’s Law.” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has also introduced a federal version of the law.
In Kansas, four Republicans this year sponsored legislation to make past and future NDAs unenforceable in child abuse cases, but it died in committee. Todd Latiolais, director of policy and advocacy for No More Victims alliance, said the group would advocate for it next session.
“The unanimous passage of Trey’s Law in the House sent a clear message: Survivors of child sexual abuse and trafficking in Kansas should not be muzzled by a system meant to hold bad actors accountable,” Latiolais said in a statement.
One of the largest evangelical camps in the country, founded in 1926, Kanakuk has been plagued by allegations it covered up sexual abuse.
In 2010, Newman pleaded guilty to seven counts of sexual abuse, though prosecutors said his victims might have numbered in the “hundreds.” Newman, who was hired by Kanakuk in 1995, is now serving two life sentences, plus 30 years, at the Jefferson City Correctional Center.
A 2022 lawsuit filed by Logan Yandell, who as a child was abused by Newman, alleged camp leadership concealed knowledge about Newman’s behavior, which influenced his family’s decision to settle and sign an NDA.
As early as 1999, the camp received reports that Newman engaged in nude activity with young boys, according to an affidavit by Newman’s former supervisor. He recommended Newman be fired in 2003 but instead, Newman was later promoted.
Kanakuk and White continue to face lawsuits by former campers, including one filed last year by a woman who said she was abused by Newman.
“Faced with overwhelming evidence of illegal sexual misconduct involving a minor, Joe White and Kanakuk took no action to terminate Newman,” wrote the attorneys for another Newman survivor, who won a $5 million judgment against Newman and who is now suing the camp.
Camp leadership has called Newman a “master of deception” and denied past knowledge of his abuse.
In a statement on its website, Kanakuk said many kids had their “happiest memories” there, but the camp acknowledged for others, “a dark chapter” in its history continued to cause pain.
“We wish that chapter in our history didn’t exist, and we also wish we hadn’t added to the pain and hurt written within,” the camp wrote. “We now know we did, and for that we are sorry.”
A 2021 investigation by journalist Nancy French in the Springfield News-Leader revealed the abuse spanned decades. Other men tied to Kanakuk, French reported, had been convicted of sex crimes, including a counselor who abused three campers ages 9 to 12.
Speaking in 2022 on St. Louis on the Air, French said Newman was one of the “most prolific serial abusers” she’d ever heard of.
“I started digging into it,” she said, “and realizing that many of the camp leaders, including the ones that are still running the camp today, were aware of a lot of this abusive behavior and looked the other way — not only looked the other way, but promoted him repeatedly.”