What Makes Illahee Different?
Friday, July 14, 2006
Every night, camp director Gordon Strayhorn updates camp families with musings about the day in addition to hundreds of pictures of campers having a blast. This is an excerpt from his posting on July 13th, 2006.
We had several prospective families visit camp today as is often the case during the summer...especially in July. I always love visiting with girls who are interested in Illahee and make it a point to say hello. Today, a mom toured with her daughter who had learned about Illahee from some friends up in Cashiers, and she was interested in what I thought were the differences between Illahee and some of the other girl's camps around. She knew that we had been directors at another camp for a number of years, and thought that I might have a unique perspective.
She was right...but it's hard to verbalize those differences without sounding arrogant...But, it's also hard to be in my 25th year working at camps and not have some opinions on what makes a camp successful. I do think Illahee is one of the best camps there is for girls...and we are constantly looking for ways to make it better. We value people more than we value anything else. We believe that if we hire the very best counselors and staff to work with your girls, then camp will be successful wherever it is. I think we are pretty good at judging character and who will be successful at camp. If our counselors are indicative of the future of leadership in this great country, then it is a bright one indeed.
I think that the most successful camps are those where the directors are directly involved in the day to day life of the community....and who know the names of most of the girls, and are actively learning those that they don't know. I think the best camps are those where the directors and senior staff love camp and love the campers, and love helping to foster a community where respect and compassion are the norm.
I just returned from an evening at Kuykendall with the Pineview girls, and it was a most enchanting evening. It was one of those evenings that just seems to come together of its own accord. As you might imagine, our oldest girls sometimes need a little cajoling to put their best face forward to board the buses for a night under the stars. To add insult to some's injury, we had the heaviest shower of the season about 4:00 P.M., and hour or so before the planned departure. Nevertheless, we left on time, and after a little sprinkle about dusk, the clouds cleared, revealing the most azure blue skies I have seen this summer.
These girls ate more food than you can imagine. Most had at least two hamburgers or a hotdog and hamburger...chips, apples, and then s'mores. I don't pepper our staff with a lot of rules, but one thing I feel very strongly about is that we eat well, and we eat enough...I hate running out of food anywhere, especially when it is so good grilled over charcoal on an overnight. That was not the case this evening...yummm!
We played frisbee, and played inthe streams. Rachel played guitar and a group serenaded the rest of us before most joined in. The fire was bright, the comraderie was strong, and I would still be out there save the strong desire to share today's pictures with you. I looked back through a bunch of our pictures today. Mary Lou is back with us as you will see through the end of the session to help out with pictures. I love the ones I took this morning at Kuykendall of the Hillbrookers waking up. The combination of the light and the hair is priceless!
The pictures have loaded, and I will post so you can enjoy them before bed. Sleep well. Gordon.
