Hanna Boys Center names new principal

Hanna Boys Center, Sonoma Valley’s embattled residential treatment and education center for troubled youth, named a new education director and principal Monday for its affiliated school, Archbishop Hanna High School.

Mike Ruyle has worked with Hanna Boys Center since last fall as a consultant from Colorado-based Marzano Research, an education research and consulting company. He will replace longtime principal Dennis Crandall, who will step down after 14 years as principal to focus on fundraising. Ruyle will work under Crandall’s leadership until he takes the helm in August.

Ruyle has worked as a coach, served as an assistant principal and taught as an adjunct professor and presenter at Montana State University.

He joins Hanna Boys Center at a crucial time for the 73-year-old program for abused and neglected boys, still under state scrutiny after a sex abuse scandal came to light last year.

Criminal proceedings are continuing against a 14-year employee and one-time clinical director, Kevin Thorpe, who is accused of molesting at least four center clients over a 10-year period. The center is also facing an ongoing civil whistleblower lawsuit from a former employee who said he was wrongly fired for complaining about a lack of supervision over minors involved in bullying.

-Julie Johnson