Alumni News

Will Miller with his nephews Cameron (left) and Ian Bush.

It is always a treat to have camp alumni stop by to visit.  Yesterday, July 8, we had a wonderful visit with Will Miller.  Will was on a business trip in this area with his employer, Phonetree, which specializes in medical software.  Will was originally from Knoxville, TN and was a camper for six summers and a counselor one summer.  Will and his wife, Kenzie, now live in Winston-Salem, NC.  Their two sons, Trey and Duncan, were also Alpine Campers.  Trey is in his 4^th year at UVA and Duncan will be a sophomore this fall at the Naval Academy.  Will has two nephews at Alpine this summer.  They are Ian and Cameron Bush from Appleton, WI.  Ian is on Work Crew and Cameron is a first year chief.  This is Ian’s 10^th summer and Cameron’s 8^th summer at camp.

Will says he still recalls with fondness his first summer as a camper, living in Longbow cabin with John Gilbert as his counselor.  He attributes his faith in Christ to his counselors who nurtured him and provided a strong moral compass for him during those many summers on Lookout Mountain.  Will and his family have a long history with Alpine Camp, and it was such a treat to have him back on the mountain.

Weldon Pless (far left) with Rob Langley, David Steele, Chris Kerr and Clarke Norton

Here is an essay written by Weldon Pless.  Weldon has been at Alpine every summer since he was in the first grade (only missing one summer).  This year, after he graduates from Ole Miss we are excited that he will join our full time staff.  I think you will enjoy Weldon’s reflections on camp!  

Whenever I buy new music, I buy records. And that’s not just slang for CDs. I’m talking about black, vinyl, old-timey records. The ones you put on and sit back to listen to the entire thing without stopping. To me, Alpine is a bit like those records.

Records are sort of a step back in time. You can’t skip around to your favorite tracks or put all the freshest songs on a playlist. You can’t stick in your headphones and walk around town listening to records, or even play them in your car. But there are some really good things about it too. Listening to records allows you to really listen to the music. Once I take the time to put one on, I sit there and I listen to the whole thing, and I let myself enjoy it. I listen closer to songs I might have skipped if I was listening on my iPod. Stepping back in time to listen to my music actually lets me listen better. It slows me down and holds my attention. 

The same is true of Alpine. Every summer I come back to ride horses instead of driving cars, to watch sunsets instead of watching television, and to sing songs instead of listening to the radio. It’s a step back in time, but it frees me up to really enjoy the summer. 

Sometimes during the school year I don’t give myself a chance to slow down. I never stop long enough to notice the things around me like the sounds and smells of nature that are so prominent at camp. When it rains during the school year, I put on a movie or surf the internet. When it rains at camp, I listen to it.

I also have deeper conversations with friends at camp than I usually do in my life outside. At camp there is time to really talk. Whether it’s while walking to an activity period, playing ping pong, or eating a meal, deep conversations at camp seem to rise up organically. I think it’s because we’re given a schedule and an order in our days, and it frees up our minds to dwell on other things. Alpine lets us take a step back and enjoy living, and it’s one of the biggest reasons I come back every summer.

     This week we have had beautiful spring weather here on Lookout Mountain!  Temperatures have climbed into the 80′s on several days.  A cold front came through yesterday and temperatures began to fall, but we know that spring cannot be far away and soon this place will be filled with the happy laughter and shouts of campers and staff.  We cannot wait!  We are busy readying our camp facility for the arrival of our 2009 campers and the opening of Alpine Camp for Boys’ 51st camping season.  The daffodils and forsythia are blooming, the trees are budding and soon we will be seeing the redbud and dogwood in bloom.  We are excited that many of you Alpine Alums now have sons following in family tradition and are enrolled in our 2009 season.

     Alums, please know how much we enjoy the contact with each of you.  We encourage you to post updates on yourself in the Alumni Section of our new website.  We also love having you stop by camp to see us when you are in this area.  Just last Sunday we had a surprise visit from Richard Lamb, longtime camper from Shreveport, LA.  Richard has recently been transferred with his company, Medtronic, from Shreveport to Birmingham, AL.  Richard and his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Kappy, stopped by to see us.  We had a great visit and relived a lot of of camp memories.  Richard and his brothers, Walter and Patrick, were longtime campers.  Their cousin, Christoper Peatross, was another Alpiner for many summers.  Walter Lamb is a bank president in Shreveport and Christopher Peatross, a graduate of Stanford, works and lives in Orinda, CA.  We recalled lots of names of camp friends and cabin mates.  Richard does not forget a name and wanted updates on all camp buddies that he has not seen or heard from lately.  We hope we will see more of him now that he is living so much closer.

     Let me take this opportunity to encourage you Alpine veterans to use the Alumni Blog on the new website to post updates on yourself.  We love getting these updates from you telling us of your whereabouts, your family, and what Alpine connections you have made recently.  Earlier this month we had an email from James Herring, a former staff member from Canton, MS.  James is married and lives in New York City and has several boys who will soon be camp age.  In addition to James we have a number of former campers and staff living in New York including Kyser Thompson, Mike Keller, Stuart Hurt, and Tarpley Mott to name a few.  Maybe we need to organize an “Alpine Picnic” in Central Park this spring?

Recently I was “friended” on Facebook by Louie Little, staff member from 1973 and 1974.  Louie, originally from Jackson, MS and a graduate of Mississippi State, now lives in Dallas where he is Director of Human Resources for East-West Ministries International.   Louie and his wife, Kaky, have a son, David, a student at Wake Forest, and a daughter, Katie, a high school senior.  Louie and Bill “Shu” Wilshusen, another Alpine Alum, occasionally meet for lunch and catch up on Alpine connections.  “Shu”, another counselor from the ’70′s is a Vanderbilt graduate and practices law in Dallas.  “Shu” was the cabin counselor in “Fun City”, also known as Alahe, back in the 70′s with an all-star group of campers including Robert Clark, Patrick Toomey, John Puckett and David May.  Who else enjoyed those happy days back in “Fun City”?  If you were in “Shu’s” cabin that summer, let me know.  I know that Robert Clark now lives in Lookout Mountain, TN and has two sons that are Alpine campers.  John Puckett lives in Jackson, MS and he has three sons who are Alpine campers.  I understand that Patrick Toomey is a resident of Birmingham.

     Recently I received an email from my oldest daughter, Toy, with an update on Nate Rawlings from Lookout Mountain, TN, an Alpine camper from ’91-’97.  Nate was usually first term, but in ’97 he was with us second term.  Nate is a Princeton graduate and now serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq.  This is his second deployment to Iraq, and he finishes his tour there this month and plans to leave the Army to go back to graduate school, hopefully in Journalism.  Nate has been an NPR correspondent in Iraq for the past year.  His final radio message went out on March 6.  You can catch it an others at www.npr.org/nate.  Nate, thank you on behalf of the entire Alpine Family for your faithful and courageous service in protecting our freedom!  We are indebted to you and the many others who have defended our country since 9/11.  God Bless you as you move toward graduate school.

By the way, I have moved into the 21st Century, and you can now find me on Facebook.  This has been a great way to locate former campers and staff.  Please “friend” me and that is a great way for you to update me on yourself, your family, where you now live, and what you are doing if you don’t want to write a post on the Alumni Blog on the website.  Many of you guys have registered in the Alumni Guestbook, but now you need to go back and update your profile such as entering your spouse’s name, your occupation, your anniversary, and the dates you attended alpine as a camper/staff.  This will be a huge help for our office.  Again know that we are always delighted for you to stop by camp and see us when you are traveling in the area.

My mother, Alice O’Ferrall has always been passionate about instilling a “sense of wonder” in our campers.  Growing up going on hikes with her, she passed that passion along to me.  Today, it is hard for boys to find a place where they can be “unplugged” from the rest of the world.  It is our hope that boys will come to camp and be forever change by having a summer filled with seeing the stars from our athletic field, catching a frog with cabin mates, sitting on a cabin porch in the evening and hearing the crickets, racing on a bike through the woods or listening to the rush of the river as they go to sleep.  Boys need a place “to be boys.”  And they can do that at camp in the midst of a beautiful piece of God’s creation!

Here are two books that are very near and dear to our hearts.

Enjoy!

Carter

The summer of 2008 was blessed with some very talented musicians, as many of you know.  We spent several days recording some Alpine favorites and some popular hymns we sing at camp.  We are very excited to now have a podcast on ITunes where we will be releasing these songs, a few at a time.  You can subscribe to the podcast and download them for free.  Simply click on the Alpine Podcast link on the side of the Blog home page.  If you don’t have ITunes you can get the XML feed and listen to them on your computer.  Or you can go to the ITunes store and search for Alpine Podcast for Boys and subscribe there. 

We want to give credit to all those who helped with the project: Toy O’Ferrall Harmon, Weldon Pless, guitar, Montgomery Miller, guitar, Harrison Ford, banjo, Matt McDonald, violin, Andrew Terrell, cello, William Decosimo, mandolin, Kelsey Cox, djembe, Stevens Shuler, bagpipes.  This is an incredibly talented group and we are grateful for their contributions! 

Stay tuned for more songs and also some slide shows and videos from camp in the future!