Although he had supposedly been kicked out of the Boy Scouts in 1965 for sexually molesting boys in Troop 323 in Green Mountain, Iowa, Allen Clarence Ewalt continued to volunteer and even work as a paid Scouter until 1987. The BSA first created an “Ineligible Volunteer” or “Perversion File” on Ewalt in 1965 for his abuse of Scouts – or what the BSA referred to as “homosexual activities with boys in the troop.” Being put on the BSA’s “IV List” should have resulted in Ewalt being banned from Scouting for good.
It did not. As with so many child molesters, Ewalt was easily able to manipulate the system and get back into Scouting. He didn’t even try to use a different name, which shows that the BSA’s system was never very strong. Ewalt went on to hold several positions and receive several awards in Scouting over the next 22 years, until he was finally removed in 1987 for sexually abusing Scouts at the Fire Mountain BSA camp in Washington state.
He almost got caught in 1980. That year, when he attempted to register as the Commissioner of Unit 8602 of the Evergreen Area Council in Everett, Washington, the BSA denied his registration because he had been kicked out in 1965. But Ewalt – Dr. Ewalt by that time – and the local Council Executive wrote to BSA National in support of his registration, arguing that he had been “a registered Scouter serving either as a Troop Committee Chairman or as a Commissioner” for the Evergreen Area Council for the past six years. Dr. Ewalt sent a list to BSA National of all of the different positions he had held (since 1965!) and awards he had received for those years, imploring BSA to let him register again. So, despite having kicked him out for sexually molesting little boys, the BSA let Ewalt officially register as a volunteer again.
The 1980 episode demonstrates at least two horrible things about the BSA’s youth protection program. First, its IV File system simply failed to work as the BSA claims it works – to screen those volunteers who have been forever black-balled from Scouting for molesting children. Apparently Ewalt had been able to volunteer with Scouts continuously since 1965 and to officially register with BSA as a volunteer and receive Scout awards from 1974 to 1979 without the BSA ever once catching him with their IV File screening system. Second, if the system failed to work long enough and the child molester asked politely enough, apparently the BSA was willing to let the molester back in.
In 1980, BSA allowed Dr. Ewalt to register on a probationary basis for “two to three years.” Five years later, he was still involved with Scouting and even working as a paid employee as the Camp Health Officer at the Fire Mountain BSA camp in Washington state. He was finally caught when he molested two Scouts at camp in 1985. Although Scout employees and volunteers became aware of these incidents in 1985, the Boy Scouts did not take steps to finally remove Dr. Ewalt from Scouting until 1987.
Ewalt’s 1987 Perversion File offers “a lack of judgment” as the reason for his ineligibility for Scouting. The lack of judgment was on the part of the Boy Scouts for thinking that their weak and secret Ineligible Volunteer file system could protect children from predators like Dr. Ewalt, determined to use their positions as trusted Boy Scout volunteers to sexually exploit young children. The Boy Scouts should have reported Ewalt’s crimes to the police back in 1965, not relied on a piece of paper in a filing cabinet to protect the hundreds of young boys who crossed Ewalt’s path before he was finally arrested in Washington state in 1987.