Geary High isn’t the only school in the county dealing with the misdeeds of a former coach.
Colton Looper, who served as the Watonga wrestling coach in 2019, was arrested Sept. 1, 2022 in Rogers, Ark., and charged with first degree sexual assault. It is alleged he had a sexual relationship with a student who has since graduated.
That would seem like a series of unfortunate events, except Looper told Arkansas authorities “he had been accused of something like this when he was a coach in Watonga, Oklahoma, admitting that he had inappropriate conversations with an 18-year-old girl that wanted to join the wrestling team in Watonga.
Current Watonga School Superintendent Kyle Hilterbran was not at Watonga when Looper was on the faculty. Looper resigned at the end of only one year and neither the superintendent nor the board members are at liberty to discuss personnel matters.
However, Hilterbran was adamant that there are policies and procedures in place to protect students from inappropriate behavior, relationships or abuse at Watonga Schools.
“Safety is our top priority,” Hilterbran said Tuesday. “We have a policy as required by law.”
Part of the policy is in the vetting practice prior to employment. Prospective employees are subject to fingerprinting, criminal background checks, reference checks and other due diligence.
Beyond that, Hilterbran pointed out that if it is believed a crime has been committed, his first call is to law enforcement.
“It isn’t our job to decide if they broke the law,” he said. “It is our job to report broken laws to the police and try to help them with the investigation. That’s with any crime committed against any student, teacher or employee.”
Hilterbran said he did contact local law enforcement when he learned of the Looper arrest.
Looper is free in lieu of $50,000 bail and is scheduled for a pretrial hearing April 24 in Benton County, Arkansas.
Anyone who believes tehy have been a victim of a crime should contact local law enforcement.