TOPEKA — The Tall Oaks Camp and Conference Center demanded Monday that U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall suspend a campaign commercial attacking Democrat Adam Hamilton that made unauthorized use of a photograph of children at Tall Oaks’ chapel in Linwood.
A senior advisor to the Marshall campaign said the ad was “corrected,” but hours after that statement was issued, a version of the commercial available on social media still included an image of the Tall Oaks’ distinctive chapel and about two dozen people sitting on pews.
Lea Ann Combs, president of the board of directors at Tall Oaks, a nonprofit summer camp and retreat center, said Tall Oaks wasn’t consulted by the Marshall campaign and didn’t approve inclusion of the photograph in the commercial. The ad denounced Hamilton in relation to allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by a volunteer at Church of the Resurrection, the prominent Johnson County-based church founded and led by Hamilton.
“Our concern is straightforward,” Combs said. “This advertisement creates a misleading association between Tall Oaks, the young people pictured and events that did not happen here. Protecting the dignity of these young people and accurately representing our organization should be a shared priority.”
She said Marshall’s campaign should stop broadcasting the 30-second commercial until confirming the Tall Oaks photograph had been deleted.
The commercial began airing in conjunction with reports on a decision by the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC, to pull $8 million from a North Carolina campaign and redirect it to help Marshall’s reelection bid in Kansas. The latest New York Times/Siena College Poll shows Hamilton and Marshall tied at 45% support each, based on a survey of likely voters.
In the ad paid for by Marshall’s campaign, a photograph of the senator appeared in the opening sequence while a recording of his voice said he approved content of the commercial. The senator’s ad claimed Hamilton didn’t respond promptly to a report suggesting a church volunteer may have touched or attempted to touch boys attending a 2005 program hosted by Church of the Resurrection.
“Parents were ignored and Hamilton never called police,” Marshall’s attack ad says. “He should never be our senator.”
The commercial included still photos of Marshall and Hamilton, cottages, dormitory-style rooms, hiking trail, rural property and a group of people sitting in rows, most with their back turned, in the chapel at Tall Oaks.
Combs said permission had been granted to photograph young people at Tall Oaks for the purpose of promoting the camp and its programs. She said that approval didn’t extend to inclusion of photographs in political campaign advertising, particularly commercials delving into claims of sexual abuse. Tall Oaks works to provide a safe environment for children, families, faith communities and other organizations using its facilities, the statement said.
The statement said Tall Oaks encouraged Marshall to remove the photograph from all platforms tied to the campaign. The objective was to make certain no one viewing the ad would mistakenly believe Tall Oaks or the children appearing in the ad were connected to allegations of abuse, the statement said.
The request shouldn’t be interpreted as an endorsement or rejection of any candidate or a comment on the merit of allegations raised in the commercial, the statement said.
Brent Robertson, Marshall’s chief of staff, said the photograph from Tall Oaks was thought to have been a “stock image” available for general use. The Tall Oaks picture wasn’t taken at the site of Hamilton’s “child molestation cover-up,” Robertson said.
“The image has already been corrected and, luckily, Kansas families care far more about Hamilton’s failure to protect kids from a child sex predator than what cabin picture was used,” Robertson said.
Tyson Brody, a campaign spokesperson for Hamilton, said the ad wasn’t in line with Marshall’s vote in September 2025 to block a U.S. Senate measure directing the U.S. Department of Justice to release unclassified records about Jeffrey Epstein. The wealthy financier, child sex offender and acquaintance of President Donald Trump committed suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sex trafficking of minors.
“Marshall lies and uses children as political pawns to distract from the fact he had pregnant mothers arrested and jailed over small medical debts, and voted to protect the predators named in the Epstein files. Roger Marshall is desperate to hide from his record of protecting predators, and preying on low-income families in Kansas,” Brody said.
In a Kansas Reflector report published in July on abuse allegations involving Church of the Resurrection, Hamilton said two church employees conducted an internal investigation into claims that surfaced in 2005. The inquiry was inconclusive, Hamilton said, because the children couldn’t identify the perpetrator.
Hamilton said he should have forwarded information to law enforcement rather than depend on church staff. When new allegations surfaced against volunteer Scott Moore in 2006, the church informed police of allegations associated with camp retreats in 2005 and 2006.
Moore was accused of sex crimes in the Kansas City area and Massachusetts. He was convicted in 2013 in Kansas of a misdemeanor count of sexual battery. In 2015, Moore was found unconscious after he fled police when caught half-naked in a car with a teenage boy. He died at a hospital.
Tall Oaks is a nonprofit camp, retreat and conference facility on 236 acres near Linwood.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.