Also known as

Teen Challenge, Bonifay or West Florida Boys Ranch

Location

1213 Hope Lane, Bonifay, FL 32425

Website

http://christianmilitaryschool.org/

Accreditation

No legally recognized accreditation

Children served

boys (11-17)

• Description

This military school for troubled boys, connected with the international Teen Challenge network, was founded in 1998 by Dave Rutledge and accredited by FACCCA until 2006. Boys are initiated into the program with in-their-face directions from drill instructors and heavy doses of exercise. They must earn their way out of the orange jumpsuits they are given on Day 1.

In 2008, 15-year-old Samson Lehman was exercised until his body gave out. He was flown to a hospital with organ failure, on the verge of death.
Director Rutledge says the school has changed the way it exercises its new students since then, hired a registered nurse and now requires metabolic panels of incoming boys.
The school allowed Times reporters to interview four parents with students enrolled in the program, but only in front of staff, and only as a camera rolled. All parents said they had noted positive changes in their sons. As boys advance in the program, they gain privileges. They participate in sports and take trips to Guatemala. The school enrolled to seek accreditation from the Council on Accreditation a week before this Times investigation published.

• Former residents

Jacob McCracken, 23

“I was 15 years old and being tortured mentally and physically," McCracken wrote in an email. "This incident one of many changed my LIFE FOREVER.”

Authorities prosecuted a staff member in 2005, alleging he struck McCracken and two others in the head and face, choked McCracken and stood on another boy’s throat, almost causing both to lose consciousness. The employee was acquitted, but founder Dave Rutledge said he fired the man.
 

Nick Roberts, 19

"I decided, 'What am I doing? I'm tired of living like this.'"

Nick Roberts said he "thought life was all about fun" before he was sent to Teen Challenge in Bonifay. He said the military program taught him there was more to it than that. One of the first realizations came when he opened a Bible to find notes from his mother. He is now a drill instructor at the academy.

Jacob Van Buren, 21

"I snapped. I went after both of them. They both pinned me down... I still wrestled them for two hours. I had a bad habit of bottling up things inside... After that moment things changed for me. I was more open, more willing to ask for help."

Jacob Van Buren was an angry teenager sent to Teen Challenge in 2006. He graduated in 2008. And though there are things he did not agree with about the school, like some ways boys were punished, he said he changed there. He remembers the moment that it happened. He said drill sergeants picked at him and baited him until he burst out at them.