Staff Appreciation Month -- Our Terrific Counselors!

My poor counselors. They had no idea what was about to ride through the gate on my first day of camp. To call me rambunctious was putting it lightly. I was a wired little third grader with an outrageous amount of energy. That was before sugar was added to the mix. I also had the tendency (still do) to want to win at everything. If I could claim victory, it was a competition. They had to manage not only my excessive energy and competitiveness, but handle another 19 hooligans as well.

There are four counselors that impacted me the most. Kevin Miller, Kris Dunn, Ryan West, and Craig West. Without these four guys, Doublecreek may have been just another camp to me. They truly made my experience here and I cannot express my gratitude to them enough. They always made it clear when I was in the wrong, and when I was right. They were quick to praise and quick to correct. They were never afraid to play around with the campers and make fools of themselves.

There are a couple of specific moments that stand out to me about them. Kevin and Kris won our Mr. and Mrs. Doublecreek competition while I was a camper (if you haven’t seen a big, burly football player in a grass skirt and lipstick, you haven’t lived). When I finally became a counselor, I brought the skit back - sans lipstick, naturally claiming the title of Mr. Doublecreek in the process. Craig constantly used my own competitiveness against me for the benefit of the group. One day a camper’s glasses went missing from the group and he told everyone that whoever found them would get 5,000 merits for the farmer/rancher competition, which meant a head start in the nickel dive. I immediately went to the spot I had “placed” the glasses and proudly walked back to Craig to collect my merits. Little did I know that Craig suspected I was responsible for the missing glasses the entire time and knew if he offered even a meager reward I would immediately go and “find” them. Then there was Ryan, the highly disputed master of the old 6th and up boys group. Ryan had the perfect personality to handle the older kids. He gave them freedom, but let them know when they crossed the line. Mostly by announcing over a megaphone whatever infraction had occurred. It became my life’s goal to yell something into that megaphone. Unfortunately (for me), I was never allowed near enough to do so. Years later I found that same megaphone and was so excited to finally wield the great power it bestowed upon it’s handler. Disappointingly, the batteries had corroded so badly that it was completely unusable. I then realized that it wasn’t the megaphone that was so interesting, but how Ryan used it to corral a bunch of rowdy middle schoolers.

Camp is absolutely amazing, but without the staff it is just a  plot of land with a lot of potential. It’s the counselors that make the special memories for our campers. When I get together with some of the people that went to camp with me, we never talk about how great that time was when we climbed the rockwall. We don’t discuss the time we first hit a home run in blooperball. What we talk about are our old counselors and what they did. They, along with Aunt Trudy and Uncle Carter, made a far greater impact on who we are than anything else out here.

-- Parker Achord, Staff Coordinator