SPRINGFIELD -- A former teacher and principal in the Springfield School District is accused of having thousands of photos and hundreds of videos depicting child pornography on his home computers.  Greene County prosecutors charged Gary Rademacher on Friday with 10 counts of possession of child pornography.  Investigators say Rademacher admitted in an interview that he’d downloaded the child pornography from Web sites and said he’d been looking at child pornography since he was a teenager.

  Rademacher, 53, most recently was a history teacher at Jarrett Middle School but hasn’t taught since December and officially retired on Jan. 31.  The district says his final salary was $57,038.  He started teaching in the Springfield School District in 1977.  He taught at McGregor, Robberson, Williams and Weaver elementary schools, and Reed and Cherokee middle schools, was principal at Rountree Elementary from 2001 to 2003, and assistant principal at Pipkin Middle School in 2003-'04.  He also is a former vice president and president-elect of the Missouri State Teachers Association, a statewide group that represents teachers, including many in the Springfield School District.  He resigned from the president-elect position this winter.

  Rademacher also is a former Scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 31, where he still was a registered member of the troop committee on Friday.  Dean Ertel, Scout executive of the Ozark Trails Council, said neither police nor prosecutors had contacted him to let him know about the investigation.  Under the BSA's rules, Ertel is required to take steps to remove Rademacher as a registered Scout leader now that he knows about the evidence that police found.

   Police say the investigation started after Rademacher took a computer to a repair shop in January.  Technicians trying to save the data on the computer’s hard drive called police after they found images that appeared to show young teen-age boys in sexual situations.

   Detectives applied for and got a series of search warrants for the computer hard drive at the shop and other computers and storage media disks at Rademacher’s home.  A detective, Cpl. David Stone, says he found 225,628 photos and 520 movies that show children, all except one being boys, “engaged in sexual contact, sexual activity, or anal sexual intercourse (sodomy).”

  "We just need to be reserved and quiet,” said Springfield School District Superintendent Norm Ridder.

  District leaders aren't saying much about the charges.

  "We have no evidence of any of this occurring in or around our facilities or with our kids,” said Ridder.

  "The pictures are sent off to a national database and, at this time, we are just charging him with possession of child porn; we're not charging him with making these photos,” said Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Russ Dempsey.

  Rademacher turned himself in at the Greene County jail about 9 a.m. Friday and posted a $10,000 bond.  Prosecutors want him to have no contact with children and no access to the Internet.  If convicted, he could face up to a 40-year prison sentence, four years for each of the 10 counts.