Grimes worked at Kanakuk Kamps from 1978-1989. In addition to working as a counselor, Grimes held various leadership positions including assistant program director, head of trips and head of counselors-in-training. He was referred to as “Creepy Corbie” and eventually terminated after being caught for sexual misconduct with campers, but the incidents were not reported by the camp to law enforcement. As a result, Grimes went on to work in youth ministry, was caught abusing children as a youth pastor at another institution, and was finally convicted of sexual abuse in Texas in 2002.
-------------
"A counselor who held a variety of Kanakuk jobs in the late 1970s and 1980s, was sentenced to life in prison in 2002 for sexually abusing a boy in Texas in 1999. At Grimes' trial, a Kanakuk director disclosed that Grimes had been fired from Kanakuk after an incident involving a young male camper."
Corbie Dale Grimes, who worked at Kanakuk in the 1970s and ’80s, is serving a life sentence for abusing a boy in Texas in 1999.
In a 2021 phone interview recorded by a reporter, Kanakuk COO Goodwin was asked if the camp knew of “any reports, any misconduct” involving Grimes during his employment. Goodwin indicated there was nothing unusual about Grimes’ departure.
“Why did he leave? He was only a summer staff. They left all the time …,” Goodwin said.
In fact, Grimes did not leave voluntarily.
“Mr. Grimes was terminated by Kanakuk for inappropriate behavior and poor judgment,” according to an April 3, 2021 letter attorney Ted Tredennick sent to the Facts About Kanakuk website. Tredennick said Grimes’ actions “did not constitute a ‘reportable offense’ in a criminal context” when Grimes was terminated in 1989.
However, those actions were serious enough that former Kanakuk administrator Cooper testified at Grimes’ trial that Grimes was fired after encouraging a camper to “pull his pants down, and Mr. Grimes … (was) whacking his pee pee with a stick.”
Cooper characterized this as “inappropriate behavior on Corbie’s part,” which the camp deemed “inappropriate enough that we let him go.”
- Survivors, ex-employees say Kanakuk Christian camp 'ministered' to its sexual predators, USA Today - May 27, 2022
