Note: The following investigation is based on the Independent’s review of public records and interviews with involved parties, beginning in late 2023. The Independent’s investigation revealed issues related to employment at Wooster High School and Hocking College licensure, with the State Board of Education, and not criminal charges, associated with the alleged incidents described below.
The Athens County Independent thanks the staff of the Dr. Frank Stanton First Amendment Clinic at Case Western Reserve University School of Law for its pre-publication review of this story.
NELSONVILLE, Ohio — The State Board of Education of Ohio this month took action against a local pastor for previous alleged sexual misconduct.
At its meeting Feb. 9, the state board passed a resolution to “accept the report and recommendation of the hearing office to revoke permanently” Kevin Lowry’s one-year, expired educational aide permit.
The state alleges that Lowry violated the State Board of Education’s Licensure Code of Professional Conduct at Wooster High School in 2021 due to inappropriate sexual conduct with a student, who was 18 years old.
Lowry, now a commissioned pastor at the First Presbyterian Church of Nelsonville, previously served in multiple roles at educational institutions, including Hocking College and Wooster City Schools. He faced sexual misconduct allegations at both schools.
In 2023, Hocking College investigated Lowry under alleged Title IX violations. Hocking College’s investigation concluded that Lowry had violated the college’s workplace and sexual harassment policies, and recommended that be ineligible for rehire. Lowry resigned from Hocking College during the investigation.
The state used Hocking College’s investigation as evidence at Lowry’s Sept. 30, 2025, administrative hearing for alleged misconduct while he held an educational aide permit. Lowry did not attend the hearing. But prior to that, Hocking College’s investigation prompted concerns from community members attending the church, some of whom left the congregation because of Lowry’s leadership role.
In its allegations against Lowry, the State Board of Education specifically cited Ohio Revised Code 3319.31 (B1), “Engaging in an immoral act, incompetence, negligence, or conduct that is unbecoming to the applicant’s or person’s position,” and Ohio Administrative Code 3302-73-21, (A2) and (A8), “Crimes or misconduct involving school children,” and “A violation of the licensure code of professional conduct for Ohio educators.”
Lowry did not directly respond to the Independent’s questions that he requested via email. However, the Independent spoke multiple times with his superior, Presbytery of Scioto Valley Executive Presbyter the Rev. Kathleen Nice, within his official denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Nice said in March 2024 that Lowry had “remediated himself,” regarding allegations of sexual misconduct at Hocking College. Nice said in December 2025 she had no knowledge of the State Board of Education allegations Lowry faced related to his time at Wooster City Schools.
Lowry shared a statement with the Independent via an attorney representing him, Sierra Meek, in a letter sent via email. The statement said, “The allegations that were lodged against me were not criminal in nature nor did they involve minors in any way. I have been forthright with the church about such allegations, and I continue to follow the church’s guidelines in my ministry.”
In its 2003 commissioned lay pastor handbook, the PCUSA asks inquirers to disclose current or previous allegations of civil, criminal or ecclesiastical sexual misconduct.
Nice told the Independent in Nov. 2025 that she had no knowledge of the State Board of Education proceedings against Lowry, or any incidents at Wooster City Schools, and that she would consult with the church’s legal counsel.
On Dec. 1, 2025, Nice followed up with a request to see records from the State Board of Education that the Independent had obtained via public records request. She declined to comment on the State Board of Education allegations.
In reference to the allegations he faced at Hocking College, Meek said Lowry could not respond further, because his “role at Hocking College involved working with a diverse student population who deserve the utmost respect and who could be harmed by an in-depth response to these allegations.”
Meek noted that the allegations Lowry faced at Hocking College and before the State Board of Education were not reviewed in a court of law. The administrative processes both have lower standards of proof, Meek said.
Church: A man ‘remediated’
The First Presbyterian Church of Nelsonville, at 69 E. Washington St., is a historic church that has hosted generations of Nelsonville families and residents. It offers its small but active congregation, a farm and a preschool; the church also is the steward of the Nelsonville Cross.
Lowry said in a biography provided to the presbytery that he’s been involved in the church since arriving in Nelsonville in November 2022. (Lowry’s name is misspelled as ‘Lowery’ in the church document biography; it notes that he is married to a man who shares the same first name, Kevin Dotson).
Lowry was appointed transitional pastor for two years in October 2023 and became a ruling elder, an official church leader, in November 2023.
In March 2024, Presbytery of Scioto Valley Executive Presbyter the Rev. Kathleen Nice told the Independent that the church had conducted its own investigation of Hocking College’s investigation, and found that the Title IX report was not relevant to Lowry’s work in the church.
”We understand that Hocking College said it was a violation of their ethics policy because it happened during the time that he was employed there,” Nice told the Independent in March 2024. “But it was nothing that carried over to the church,” because Lowry’s actions predated his ordination, she said.
“That’s what we found was the biggest issue was the timeline — that it appears that he has remediated himself, that he’s no longer doing those same types of issues,” Nice said in March 2024.
Nice also said in March 2024 that while the allegations Lowry faced at Hocking College are relevant to his work at the church, Lowry “was a different person by the time that he joined the church and became an inquirer” in July 2023. An inquirer is a person considering ministry.
In a Jan. 21 email, Nice declined to further respond to direct questions or provided additional comment.
First Presbyterian of Nelsonville is part of the Presbytery of Scioto Valley, which oversees nearly 90 congregations in Central and Southeast Ohio. It is part of the greater Presbyterian Church (USA), which has over 1 million members. According to the PCUSA, presbyterian congregations are governed by local leadership called “session.” The session is made up of church elders, elected by the congregation, and the church’s pastors.
The Presbytery of Scioto Valley’s website outlines policies for the church’s response to allegations of sexual misconduct. Its sexual misconduct policy states that sexual misconduct “is never permissible or acceptable,” and that the church is to “address immediately and fairly any allegation of sexual misconduct against any employee, member or officer of the Presbytery, recognizing the presumption of innocence which exists in our system of civil law and church discipline.”
According to the PCUSA’s 2025 “Advisory Handbook On Preparation For Ministry,” all inquirers preparing for ministry must complete requisite “boundary training, including specific content regarding sexual misconduct and child sexual abuse prevention.”
Lowry worked in multiple faith-based settings — specifically around young adults — before joining the First Presbyterian Church of Nelsonville.
He worked in youth ministry, with teens, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Wayne County, according to a newsletter from July 2015. While working with Unitarian Universalist churches, Lowry also was a Unitarian Universalist Fahs Research Fellow, where his work focused on “emerging adults,” a term repeated in posts online.
In his biography provided to the presbytery in 2024, Lowry said he did seminary at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio and completed his degree with a “Youth and Young Adult Specialization.”
While in seminary, Lowry worked as chaplain and director of student ministries at the Church of the Covenant, a Presbyterian church in Cleveland. He said in his biography shared with the church that his position was eliminated because of the coronavirus pandemic and pastoral transition. While at the Church of the Covenant, Lowry’s work also focused on the local young adult population at Case Western Reserve University.
Hocking College’s Title IX investigation also states that Lowry held a “‘church’ event” at Hocking College’s Opportunity House in spring 2023, where he lived at the time.
Wooster City Schools
The following information was gathered from public records, including a transcript of Lowry’s September 2025 State Board of Education hearing, which he did not attend.
Lowry had a social work trainee license effective Aug. 23, 2021 – June 8, 2022, according to the Ohio State Board of Education’s Educator Search.
During the spring and fall of 2021, Lowry worked as a district intake coordinator and case manager for Anazao Community Partners, a mental health service provider hired by Wooster City Schools to connect students with counseling services.
Lowry’s position was based at Wooster High School. According to a misconduct reporting form filed Nov. 19, 2021, by Wooster City Schools Supt. Gabriel Tudor, Lowry also substituted work as an aide on van routes during staffing shortages.
In November 2021, a guidance counselor at Wooster High School referred a student to Lowry for mental health care services. The student then revealed to the counselor that prior to the start of the school year, they had consensual sex with Lowry after meeting on the app Grindr.
Tudor’s misconduct report notes that when the school year started and the student realized Lowry worked at their school, the student contacted Lowry over the app to ask that Lowry not contact them. Lowry appeared to have honored the request, according to Tudor.
The student was 18 when they had sex; Lowry “was roughly about 40 years old,” according to the transcript of the September 2025 hearing.
Tudor said law enforcement was contacted after the student told the guidance counselor, but the student and their family did not want to press charges, and the police were uncertain that any crime had occurred.
However, Lowry never informed the school or his employer about his connection to the student.
“He had almost three months that he could have indicated to us or his employer, Anazao, that he had a consensual encounter with someone that he believed to be an adult, and technically it [the student] was, and that it would be inappropriate for him to be in the school setting or, you know, anything like that,” Tudor said in the hearing.
As soon as the district learned about the encounter, it asked Anazao to not allow Lowry to work on district grounds, Tudor said.
Anazao alerted Lowry Nov. 19, 2021, that it would be terminating his employment for presenting a risk to the organization, due to “a lapse of personal and professional judgement constituting serious misconduct.”
According to the September 2025 hearing transcript, after being notified that the school district had learned of his sexual encounter with the student, Lowry emailed Anazao on Nov. 17, 2021, to ask:
- If he could continue working with Wooster City Schools, but with different students.
- If he could return to Wooster City Schools after the student he had sex with graduated.
- If he could continue to work with out-patient Anazao clients enrolled in Wooster City Schools.
- If he could work in education and outreach for Anazao outside of Wooster City Schools.
- If he could continue to work “as a crossover case manager for adolescents into young adults.”
In a Nov. 18, 2021, email, Lowry apologized to his Anazao superiors, stating, “I am sorry that my actions brought consternation and embarrassment to the agency, especially with our major funding partner. While I am confident that, with the information I had, I made ethical choices, I see now how I could have made other choices and been more transparent in the disclosure of my relationship with the agency and our community partner and for that I take full responsibility.”
Lowry resigned effective Nov. 30, 2021.
Tudor was the state’s only witness at the September 2025 hearing. At the hearing, Tudor said he perceived the incident with Lowry as having “significantly impacted” the high school student. However, the student successfully graduated high school and went on to college, Tudor said.
Tudor said at the hearing he found Lowry’s conduct “pretty troubling,” and his use of Grindr “risky,” given his employment at the schools.
Tudor said he would not employ Lowry in his district again, due to risks and the way Lowry responded — and didn’t respond — to the incident. He acknowledged that Lowry may not have known the student was still in school when they had sex.
Hocking College
Less than a year after leaving Anazao, Lowry in 2022 began work as director of housing and student relations at Hocking College.
Hocking College launched a Title IX investigation into Lowry on Dec. 6, 2023, after multiple students reported him for “inappropriate relationships” and “sexual conversations” with students.
The State Board of Education submitted Hocking’s investigation as evidence during the September 2025 hearing.
According to the Title IX investigation, a student reported that a peer had consensual sex with Lowry in a dorm in August 2023. Another student who participated in the investigation reported that Lowry was using Grindr to contact students on campus. The investigation states that Lowry asked one individual repeatedly about the sexualities of different students at the college.
Students also reported in the investigation that Lowry would allegedly conduct room checks without asking to enter, when they were “naked.” The investigation states, “Students advised [redacted] that KL [Kevin Lowry] would not leave the room and wait for them to get dressed.”
Another student reported when they told Lowry they didn’t want their dorm room inspected, Lowry allegedly said the student “probably has a double-sided dildo.”
A recent Hocking College graduate who worked under Lowry in the housing department told investigators that Lowry “made a sexual reference about a student,” allegedly saying, “I’d fuck the shit out of him,” the investigation states.
A student employee who worked as a subordinate of Lowry allegedly declined a permanent position at the college due to Lowry’s presence, according to investigators.
Lowry’s work phone “showed no text messages sent or received,” the investigation states. He provided investigators two pages of screenshots taken from his personal cell phone. The investigation also included an audit of all of Lowry’s emails from his Hocking College account. In it, the college found an email thread with a subject line, “Don’t f-n ghost me,” though the investigation says it’s not clear what the meaning of the emails were.
The investigation notes that Lowry’s alleged misconduct with students was disputed among those interviewed, and that not all students interviewed reported poor interactions with Lowry.
According to Hocking College’s investigation, Lowry’s first alleged inappropriate interaction with a student occurred in April 2023.
However, a former natural resources program student told the Independent that they began to file reports about Lowry’s potential misconduct to the college in December 2022, “because one of my classmates had told me that he had had a sexual relationship with Kevin.”
The student, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns, alleged that they experienced “sexual harassment,” “retaliatory behavior,” and ableism while living in campus housing under Lowry. The Independent has verified their enrollment at Hocking, but cannot independently confirm their allegations.
The student alleged that Hocking’s Title IX investigation was “not thorough.”
“If that were true, they would have gone through my reports, and they should have interviewed me,” the student said. “I think [Lowry] got off very light with the material that’s in these pages. … Some details definitely check out. But there’s a lot more to the story, as someone who actually lived in the dorms under this man.”
After the April 2023 complaint, the college didn’t receive another until December of that year, Hocking College President Betty Young said in an email.
“The concerns expressed were from community assistants and other students,” she wrote.
Young stated that Lowry “was removed from campus upon receipt of the concerns and pending the outcome of the investigation. He was given a no-trespass/no-contact order and access to his College communications was suspended. When asked to come in to address the concerns, as a part of the investigation, he immediately submitted his resignation.”
When asked why the college didn’t begin an investigation into Lowry after the April 2023 incident mentioned in the report, Young said in an email, “A concern was raised by a former student/employee in April 2023. The supervisor addressed the concern with K.L. at that time based on the information available.”
According to Young, the investigation was prompted by “students [who] spoke to a faculty member who reported it to K.L.’s supervisor. The supervisor, working with H.R., opened the investigation.”
On Dec. 15, 2023, Lowry resigned, effective immediately, without commenting in the investigation on any of the allegations.
“While Kevin Lowry chose to resign, it is still clear that he violated Hocking College policy by his conduct in his communications with students which is detailed throughout this report,” Hocking College’s Title IX investigation states.
The investigation specifically cites the college’s Workplace Harassment and Civility Policy. “Profanity and offensive inappropriate language will not be tolerated,” the policy states.
The investigation also points to a violation of the college’s Faculty/Staff Relations policy. “The conversations had by Kevin Lowry with students that included sexual references, as well as the hugging of students,” violated the policy, the investigation says.
“The recommendation for resolution is to accept the resignation of Kevin Lowry and to label him as ineligible to rehire at Hocking College,” the Title IX investigation states.
On Jan. 30, 2024, the Athens County Independent requested records related to that Title IX investigation. Despite numerous follow-ups, the college did not send records until Dec. 9, 2024 — and those records omitted some of the documents requested without explanation, and were redacted without explanation, contrary to Ohio law.
Community reactions
News of the Title IX investigation and Lowry’s departure from Hocking College circulated on social media, on Reddit’s r/HockingCollege and the Nelsonville Crackheads’ Facebook page. It had immediate effects.
Lowry had volunteered as chaplain for the Nelsonville Fire Department beginning in August 2023, according to a Facebook post. When the Independent asked Fire Chief Harry Barber about Lowry’s service in January 2024, Barber said in an email that Lowry was no longer serving as chaplain. Barber did not specify if Lowry resigned voluntarily, or if he was asked to.
The First Presbyterian Church of Nelsonville saw a minor loss in attendance following Hocking College’s Title IX investigation of Lowry. At least three people, who agreed to speak with the Independent on the record, left the congregation because of Lowry’s increasing leadership in the church.
Former Nelsonville resident Dottie Fromal began attending the church in 2016 and became a member in 2020. She resigned from the church’s farm board via email Feb. 7, 2024, stating, “I am distressed by my lack of confidence in the current leadership at First Presbyterian Church and my personal sense of ethics prevent me from continuing at this time.”
Fromal sent a lengthy letter Feb. 21, 2024, to the church clerk voicing concerns about Lowry, following the circulation of Hocking College’s Title IX investigation. Fromal described interactions she had with Lowry; she alleged he had a “short temper and aggressive nature,” and noted “inappropriate use of harsh language,” according to a copy of Fromal’s letter she provided to the Independent.
Fromal wrote that because Lowry resigned from his position at Hocking without much participation in the investigation, “I have come to distrust him and worry that he is not fully disclosing his actions. … His decision to quit rather than explain is super concerning.”
Lori Crook also left the church in February 2024 due to the Hocking College investigation. Crook shared with the Independent her letter to the session, dated Feb. 27, 2024:
“I was shocked reading the documentation of his behavior at Hocking College, which I procured through a public record request (attached). At the very least, the was looking for sexual opportunities among the very young people he was hired to help, serve, and counsel. This behavior is an abuse of power, it is inherently manipulative, and it is wrong. I have no idea why First Presbyterian’s lay leadership has not yet made a clear statement condemning this behavior.”
Molly Prudenti was the church’s music director from late summer 2020 until her resignation in March 2024. As music director, she worked alongside the church pastor, who worked under the direction of the church session, to provide worship music each week.
Prudenti recounted that around Dec. 18, 2023, she was at a Christmas party with friends from church, when conversation arose rumoring that Lowry had been removed by campus police from Hocking College’s campus. It wasn’t until late January 2024 when ”[church] session got a hold of the records, and that’s when it had to be reported to the presbytery,” she said.
Prudenti said what followed was a clandestine review among church leadership of the Hocking College Title IX investigation.
“There was absolutely no transparency,” Prudenti said. She alleged that, “there were trustees in the church who, to this day, don’t know what happened. There was not information given [to them].”
The Independent reached out to someone who was part of the session at the time, but they declined comment. Membership of the session has also changed since 2024.
Prudenti said that when the church decided to keep Lowry in a pastoral position, “I had lost respect for so many people at that point.”
Like Nice, she said the Presbytery had determined that allegations in Hocking College’s Title IX report predated Lowry’s pastoral work. Prudenti believed that the reason Lowry was not removed from his position was to “protect feelings” amongst church leadership.
She quit as music director after the church decided to “to keep Lowry on as minister,” after it had reviewed Hocking College’s Title IX investigation. “I left because this was really just a triggering thing for me,” she said.
Prudenti said she felt abandoned by the church and its congregation when she voiced concerns about Lowry’s leadership in light of Hocking College’s Title IX investigation.
“I was told that I needed to learn how to live in a small town because I was advocating for the young people who Kevin Lowry has allegedly harmed,” Prudenti said. “Hocking College took it seriously, and they believed it enough that they said he can never be rehired here.”
Prudenti said that while she did not know any of the Hocking College students who were part of the Title IX investigation, she felt that the church did them an “injustice” by placing Lowry in a leadership position.
“I really don’t care what happens between the sheets of two consenting adults … That is really none of my business,” Prudenti said. “I do care, however, when power is being abused, and especially with young people. And so that’s why it mattered to me.”
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