📚 A Bookish Chat with 'Lost Valley Lost Innocence' Ken Tipton #AuthorInterview

Today we welcome Ken Tipton to The Writer's Life e-Magazine! Ken is the author of the new memoir, Lost Valley Lost Innocence: The True Story of Best Friends Trapped in an International Boy Scout Sex Ring, and this interview is part of his Blog Tour by Pump Up Your Book. Enjoy!

Ken Tipton is a serial entrepreneur, author, composer, screenwriter, award-winning filmmaker, and Air Force veteran whose life has taken him from building unconventional businesses and producing films to confronting a childhood history he kept largely buried for decades.

His memoir, Lost Valley – Lost Innocence, tells the true story of Tipton and his best friend, Greg Connor, who were groomed and sexually exploited as boys through a network connected to their experiences in Scouting during the 1960s. Told with candor, emotional honesty, and unexpected humor, the book examines childhood abuse, institutional betrayal, friendship, survival, and the consequences that can follow victims long after the abuse itself has ended.

Tipton has spent much of his life creating—building businesses, developing film and television projects, writing screenplays, and telling stories drawn from extraordinary experiences. In his seventies, he turned that storytelling toward the most difficult subject of all: his own past.

Through Lost Valley – Lost Innocence, Tipton hopes not only to document what happened, but also to give voice to survivors who spent years or decades believing that silence was their only option.

He lives in California with his wife, Darlene, and continues to write and develop new creative projects.

Ken’s latest book is Lost Valley – Lost Innocence.

Visit his website at https://lostvalleybook.com/.

Connect with him on social media at:

╰┈➤ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LostValleyFilm

╰┈➤ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lostvalleybook

╰┈➤ BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/ken-tipton

╰┈➤ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lostvalleybook

╰┈➤Substack: https://lostvalleybook.substack.com/

Your book, Lost Valley — Lost Innocence, is the true story of best friends trapped in an international Boy Scout sex ring. Where did this take place and what year was it?

From 1964 to 1964, my best friend, Greg Connor, and I were groomed and sexually exploited as child prostitutes in an international pedophile ring run through the Boy Scouts of America.

Here is an explanation video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUkRd-EEqNk&t=27s

The story begins at Lost Valley Boy Scout Camp near Weldon Spring, Missouri, in St. Charles County, outside St. Louis.

In the memoir, I describe how the exploitation extended through more than twenty states, including events in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana.

You originally drafted the core of the book decades earlier after the St. Louis Boy Scout Council blocked you from speaking to active Boy Scout troops about your past. Can you tell us a little about this?

In 1988, I had returned to Scouting as a Den Leader. I wanted to help children recognize the grooming that Greg and I had experienced.

I submitted a proposal to the St. Louis Boy Scout Council offering to speak with area Scouts about special attention, gifts, and demands for secrecy. A representative rejected it. As I recall his response in the book, he said, “Such delicate matters belong at home, not in a public forum.”

After that rejection, I began writing at night. I gave the manuscript to my attorney, Lester Goldman, with instructions to release it only after my death. I was still terrified of my family reading it while I was alive.

This was an actual organized trafficking network that spanned more than twenty states. Is the network still in existence and, if not, how long did it take to disband it?

The book cites later reports about the ring's breakup and describes Johnnie Green’s conviction in 1978. Those events do not establish when every part of the wider network ceased operating.

The hub of the sex ring was in New Orleans through the infamous Boy Scout Troop #137. The New Orleans District Attorney, Harry Connick Sr., father of actor and singer Harry Connick Jr., brought it down in the 1970s. What started as an underground network of men who loved sex with boys is still around, and they have a website.

The North American Man Boy Love Association at https://www.nambla.org/

Which particular part in the book was the hardest to write?

The hardest passages were about my attachment to Johnnie Green, the Scoutmaster who abused me. As a boy, I saw him as the father figure I desperately wanted. Admitting that I loved someone who exploited me was extraordinarily painful.

Writing it meant facing how strongly I could remember feeling cared for while also understanding the harm he caused. My feelings did not excuse his actions or make me responsible for them.

What was the precise turning point or catalyst that made you decide that now was the time to finally publish this story after holding onto the draft for decades?

The final push to publish during my lifetime came from the Boy Scouts bankruptcy and the more than 82,000 abuse claims filed by survivors. Seeing so many people come forward made me feel that my story needed to become part of that public reckoning.

I should clarify that I had actually destroyed the first manuscript after my first grandson was born. I feared how the story might affect my children and grandchildren. In November 2010, watching Oprah’s two-episode program with 200 male survivors and Tyler Perry inspired me to write the book again from the beginning.

My wife, Darlene, supported me through the rewrite, but even then I wanted it released only after I died. The bankruptcy and the scale of the survivors’ response changed that. I offered the book for publication and hoped my family would understand why I finally needed to speak.

Do you have any advice for parents of young boys so this doesn’t happen to them?

Make sure your son knows he can tell you something uncomfortable without blame or punishment. Talk with him regularly about his body and boundaries. Respect his right to refuse unwanted affection, including from relatives, and help him identify other safe adults he can talk to.

Know who spends time with him. Watch for adults who push boundaries, encourage secrecy, or seek unusual access. Apply the same expectations to a respected leader or family friend as you would to anyone else.

If your child tells you something happened, listen calmly, take him seriously, and tell him you are glad he told you. Make clear that it was not his fault, and seek help to keep him safe. Children need information and a voice; protecting them remains an adult responsibility.

Further guidance for parents: RAINN and NSPCC.

Thank you for this interview, Ken. What’s next for you?

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share the story. I’m working on the audiobook and continuing to reach readers through interviews and outreach. I’m also working toward adapting Lost Valley — Lost Innocence as a minimum eight-episode limited streaming series, with enough time to explore the friendship between Greg and me and the consequences of what happened. My immediate hope is that people will read the book, discuss it, and, if they believe it has merit, share an honest review. I want the story to reach survivors who need to feel less alone and adults who can help protect children.

Two best friends. One hidden network. A childhood stolen under the cover of Scouting.

From 1964 to 1967, Kenny Tipton and Greg Connor were barely teenagers when men they had been taught to trust groomed and sexually exploited them through Boy Scout camps, trips, and activities.

What began at Lost Valley Boy Scout Camp outside St. Louis grew into an organized network that carried the boys through more than twenty states and into the hands of businessmen, law-enforcement officers, politicians, priests, educators, and other powerful men.

To survive, Kenny and Greg depended on each other. They made rules, kept secret records, negotiated with predators, and used intelligence, loyalty, and dark humor to hold on to some measure of control. As the danger escalated, they became caught in blackmail, betrayal, violence, and crimes that would haunt Kenny for decades.

Lost Valley – Lost Innocence is Ken Tipton’s firsthand account of stolen childhoods, institutional failure, buried secrets, and the lifelong consequences of survival.

But at its heart is something the men who exploited them could not take away: the friendship between two boys who protected one another when the adults around them would not.

Decades later, Ken finally breaks the silence.

Told with brutal honesty and unexpected humor, this is a survivor memoir about friendship, resilience, guilt, and the courage required to confront the past.

Some stories are difficult to believe because they are too horrifying to imagine.

This one happened.

Lost Valley – Lost Innocence is available at Amazon.

╰┈➤Book Details

🏕 Title: Lost Valley – Lost Innocence
🏕 Author: Ken Tipton
🏕 Genre: Memoir
🏕 Sub-genre: Sexual Assault/True Crime
🏕 Language:English
🏕 Pages: 365
🏕 Paperback ISBN: 979-8234067685
🏕 Publisher: TBRIS Media, Inc.
🏕 Publication Date: June 22, 2026
🏕 Price: Hardcover $27.99, Paperback $18.99, Kindle $7.99, FREE with Kindle Unlimited