Love and Lessons from Highlander

Twenty-five summers ago, I thought I was coming to Highlander to just be the head of waterfront for one summer. Keeping kids safe and having fun at the pool and the lake, sounded like an easy fun gig until I got my real job. What I didn’t know then was how much I would fall in love with this mountain, what it would teach me and how it would change me forever. Today at Reflect at the Rock, on the last day of my 25th summer, I shared with my camp family why I love this place and the lessons I’ve learned from Camp Highlander over the years. So here it is. This is what Old Forge Mountain has spent a quarter century showing me.

• This mountain doesn’t change. Cabins get repainted. Staff come and go. I get twenty-five years older. Old Forge Mountain has stayed exactly, beautifully itself through all of it —a constant and a comfort we can count on.
• Camp Highlander is bigger than any one person. Camp Highlander has been carrying out this same mission since 1957. I am so proud to be one chapter in something nearly seventy years old, and Lord willing, this place will still be impacting the lives of campers and staff long after I’m gone.
• Disconnecting is a gift. No phones. No feeds. No notifications. In a world that hands kids a screen before they can tie their shoes, Highlander is one of the last places left where a kid gets to just be a kid, uninterrupted. That’s not just a rule. That’s the whole point.
• The Highlander Creed lives outside of this mountain. Courage: Dare to Be Brave. Honesty: Speak Truth in Love. Integrity: Respect Yourself, Others, and Nature. Faith: Seek Truth and Believe. Four words I have leaned on for twenty-five years, and four words I have watched campers embrace, embody and extend far beyond 42 Dalton Road.
• Zumba is cool. Every summer, without fail, someone says “Are you going to teach Zumba this session? Who knew it would be such a hit when I got certified for fun 15 years ago. One summer it was so hot that I moved zumba to the pool, and we haven’t looked back since. I’m not sure if campers come because they like zumba, they like the pool or they like to laugh at me. I don’t care why, I am jst glad they come because it is the highlight of my week.
• Reflect at the Rock is grounding. Every single morning, before the first bell, before the day gets its hands on any of us — just a minute of quiet and reflection to ground us or give us a thought worth carrying all day.
• Rainy days are a gift. Any camp can brag about its sunshine. I’m proud of what happens under a rain jacket held up over a friend’s head on the walk to the boathouse or the singing and dancing that happens in the puddles. Some of the sweetest,kindest, unforgettable memories I’ve had at Highlander happened on days the sky had other plans.
• Dancing is always a good idea. Nobody just walks anywhere at Highlander. They dance, they skip, they griddy, they burst into song mid-stride. There is always a reason to dance here — we just occasionally remember to add music like at square dance or Prom night.

• Cookout is not about the food. Give a kid a field, a good meal, and zero rules attached to it, and watch what happens — frisbees flying, music carrying across the grass, kids dancing to whatever song comes on next. It is freedom to play and freedom to just be. It used to be the meal I dreaded most, but now… it might be my favorite hour of any week.
• Traditions are important. Campfire is one of the oldest traditions at Camp Highlander. It’s the relaxed vibe of hanging out with friends, singing, dancing, and reflecting on the week behind, the week ahead or the summer past. Twenty-five years of campfires, all tradition but none of them the same. (Tonight’s campfire had me in absolute tears! I am so grateful!)
• The cabin unit is everything. A a groups of campers who didn’t know each other a week ago, sharing bunk beds, time and space, and somehow becoming a family and a support system for each other by the end of it. Every camper needs their people. We all need our people.
• Time goes by too fast. Former campers who come back as counselors. Counselors who come back summer after summer until they’re on staff full time. I have watched campers grow up into staff, grow up into parents who now send their kids to Highlander. This is truly one of the great privileges of my life.
• Camp is the best place to build a family. Raising Charlie, Carter, and Catherine at camp is a gift from God. Living out a calling with Bryan, side by side, for over two decades. Not every family gets to grow up at the place they love most. But our family is bigger than the 5 of us, it includes each and every camper and staff member of the 25 years we’ve been here. We all belong in this HIghlander family. Some days I feel like the nursery rhyme, “There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn’t know what to do”…SO SHE DECIDED TO RUN A SUMMER CAMP! So many people, but oh so much love!

• Homesick turns into a home at Highlander. There is a particular kind of privilege in watching a camper go from crying at check-in to refusing to leave two weeks later. I have watched that transformation * The staff never cease to amaze me . Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one years old, and they show up every summer and pour themselves completely into somebody else’s children — because for a few weeks, that is the only job in the world that matters to them. I am in awe of them every single year, and so incredibly grateful to walk alongside them each summer.
• Camp is not possible without parents. It is no small thing to ask of anyone, to share your children with us. It is a privilege and an honor we cherish. Twenty-five years of that trust is the greatest professional honor of my life.
• Kids need to just be kids. Even just for a couple of weeks a year — undistracted, unranked, unmeasured. Only at camp are kids allowed to leave the pressures of everything else at home (academics, sports, social status, achievement) and just fully embrace the simple gift of being a kid. This is the greatest gift of camp.
• Belonging. Every camper who has ever walked up this mountain feeling like they didn’t quite fit anywhere has, eventually, found their exact right place here. It’s incredible to witness, and I am so grateful that Highlander helps campers not only belong but feel loved.
• Watching courage take a hundred different shapes. A climbing wall. A stage. A microphone at shout-outs. A first summer away from home. Twenty-five years of watching kids be brave in ways nobody else would even notice, and I notice every one. These are the things that make me smile.
• Play. Being a camp director means playing is, quite literally, my job. I get to play with campers and with staff, every single day — and watching the joy on their faces while they play is true joy.

• Being there matters. Life is hard, even at ten years old, even at twenty. Every one of us needs as many people as we can get who will love us and invest in us. Getting to be that person for thousands of campers and staff over twenty-five years has been one of the great joys of my life.
• The way you make my day. A camper asking for a mom hug. A wave from the top of the Crow’s Nest. A sweet note slipped onto my desk that I have absolutely kept — every single one. Someone popping into my office just to say hi. Small things. They have made my day, every day, for twenty-five years.
• Laughter is the best sound. The one sound that has never once changed in twenty-five years of this job — not the songs, not the trendy jokes, not the games. Just the sound of kids laughing. It is, and has always been, my favorite noise in the entire world.
• Getting to call this love “work.” I have spent 25 summers doing the thing I would do for free, the thing that feels like life, like breathing, not at all like work.
• People over perfection. Life is messy. There is no such thing as perfection, at camp or anywhere else. But people…they are forever. Relationships are what make life worth living. Remember to prioritize people, their feelings, their concerns, their struggles, their happiness. Twenty-five years of people asking “why do you do this” — the people. You. The joy you’ve handed me, the laughter, the sheer force of everyone who has ever walked up this steep road to Highlander and made this place what it is — I will be grateful for each and every one of you for the rest of my life.

This is my last blog of the summer. Thank you for joining me here for an inside view of all Camp Highlander has to offer. Thank you for sharing your children with us and for trusting us to love and care for them. We have had so much fun, and we can’t wait to do it all again next summer! See you tomorrow.