Share Your Tales From Camp
I wasn’t a summer camp kid.
Vacation Bible School and family vacations with a popup RV camper were as close as I usually got.
Instead of spending weeks away staying in cabins with other youths, my summers mostly involved playing with neighborhood children.
Still, I do have a couple of summer camp stories. To the surprise of my parents – and likely myself – as a soon-to-be ninth-grader, I decided a few days out to go to my church’s youth camp one summer, even though none of my close friends were going.
Thankfully, a 10th grader I knew welcomed me as a roommate. I didn’t learn until a couple of years ago that he was relieved to see my familiar face, as he also had decided to brave camp without his usual friends.
My impromptu decision led to more friendships and greater involvement with the church youth group, though summer marching band obligations would prevent me from returning to that camp for the next few years.
Another summer camp experience came a few years later and was also last-minute. An unexpected scholarship suddenly became available to attend band camp at Baylor University.
I roomed with other saxophonists from my high school – both better musicians than me – and got a helpful preview of college campus life and perhaps a hint that I shouldn’t major in music.
But surely you’ve got some better camp stories than those. I’d love to hear from youths in our markets about some of their camp or other summer program experiences and include some of those accounts in upcoming Camps coverage this spring online and also print.
Parents and teachers, please consider encouraging your children and students to write the newspaper and perhaps send a high-resolution photo or two.
I’d also like to thank Josh Mysore for contributing a guest column to this month’s Camps section.
The St. Mark’s School of Texas senior came to my attention over the summer when the pandemic turned what would have been his trip to India into five weeks of online language learning from home.
SUMMER STORIES: Email yours with photos to editor@peoplenewspapers.com
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