News
Work Weekend Date Announced
Spring Work Weekend
April 26-28, 2013
Join us for a weekend of reconnecting and rebuilding! We are looking for a few (or more!) good men, women, and kids to help get camp ready for the spring group camping and summer camping seasons. It is time for us to bring the cabins, hiking trails, dining hall, and flower pots out of hibernation. The weekend is a great way to reconnect with fellow Hi-Rockers, current staff, and the camp you love. Come for the weekend or come for a day, we will provide lodging, food and a warm fire to relax by in the evening.
Please RSVP to David Bjorklund (summer@camphirock.org or 413.528.1227 x13)
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS – Chris Licht
Chris Licht
Hi-Rock alumnus, 1981-86, Chris Licht has been in the news recently for accepting the position of Vice President of programming at CBS News. Chris is also known as the co-creator and original executive producer of MSNBC’s successful “Morning Joe.” Just before his move to CBS, Chris had a harrowing experience that drastically changed his point of view. Last spring, Chris suffered from a brain aneurysm that nearly took his life. This experience motivated him to write the book, What I Learned When I Almost Died. The book recounts how his outlook on life, and what matters most, changed after it was almost cut short.
We are happy to announce that Chris recently accepted an invitation to become a YMCA Camp Hi-Rock board member! Camp was a special place for Chris and we had the chance to hear why. The most memorable aspect of Hi-Rock was “the exposure to all different kinds of people from different backgrounds that you don’t get in a small town.” Chris was able to make friends with a “diverse group of kids.” At camp, Chris also “fell in love with waterskiing.” Every summer he could not wait to get to Plantain Pond and ski. This sport defined a lot of his young life. In fact, Chris holds the record for the youngest barefoot waterskier at Hi-Rock, mastering this difficult technique at just 10 years old! What does Chris miss the most about Camp Hi-Rock? “The vibe, the great energy. It’s too bad you can’t carry that to other parts of your life… everyone being there to experience new things in a safe environment.”
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS – Lady Gaga
Lady Gaga
By now you surely have heard of the quirky, pop- sensation Lady Gaga, but did you know that she was once a camper here at Hi-Rock? By the age of 4, Gaga taught herself how to play the piano and ten years later she was performing solo at a nightclub. She studied at NYU’s Tisch School for the Arts, and was later signed by Akon which led her to release her debut album, The Fame.
We know a lot about the Lady Gaga who we see in the media, but what was she like when she was a camper? We asked Hi-Rock alumna, Brooke Beebe, Gaga’s counselor, a few questions about the now pop-star’s time as a camper at Hi-Rock. Back then, from 1999-2001, everyone knew her as a kind, fun Algonquin camper named Stef. Lady Gaga was like many other Algonquin girls. She loved sailing class, arts & crafts, and of course, getting ready for the social. Stefani was “always happy to help” her cabin mates. Other girls were often “borrowing clothes from her, [and] she did their hair and makeup. [Stefani] loved to help people feel their best.” Even then, her sense of style and helping others feel good about themselves was obvious.
Brooke tells us that Stefani “loved camp and always wanted to be a counselor. She would have been a great one. She was very nurturing.” As many of us can relate to, Hi-Rock was a home away from home for Gaga. “Camp was a pretty special place for her growing up, it was a relief for her to come out here and be a different person for the summer. She always wanted to stay longer.”
Gaga was dedicated to music at a young age, and began to pursue it more seriously during her teen years. Although everyone knew her as a camper who loved to sing, no one knew how hard she had already been working on her musical career. Stef was “always singing,” Brooke recounts. After lights out in the cabin, Brooke, and her co-counselor Regina, had to tell Stef to “stop singing, we are going to get in trouble.” Her response? “One day I will be famous” and she continued to sing from her bunk.
We are very proud of her success as a musician. She is an inspiration to other Hi-Rockers to follow their dreams.
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Chips & Splinters
Check out the latest edition of Chips & Splinters, our newsletter, to see what’s been happening in the Hi-Rock world.
Read the most recent issue of Chips & Splinters.
Not Your Grandfather’s Bug Juice
When Don Hutchinson, Hi-Rock alumnus and member of the Plantain Pond Mortgage Club, visited Hi-Rock this summer for the first time in years, he had his heart set on a cup of good old fashioned bug juice!
The juice he was served did not resemble that which he recalled from his youth. This past summer, Hi-Rock stopped serving traditional bug juice, a concoction comprised primarily of sugar and food coloring and offering little nutritional benefit. Parents cheered and campers seemed to barely notice as the infamous “blue juice” was replaced with 100% fruit juice from apples, grapes, cranberries and oranges and a larger dose of water than is suggested by the manufacturer resulting in a less sugary and more nutritious drink for all.
The Berkshire Bowl
The YMCA Camp Hi-Rock versus YMCA Camp Sloane staff soccer match has been held each summer since 2008. It has always been a close competition with no team ever winning back-to back games. The series currently stands at 3-2 in Hi-Rock’s favor. The trophy which spends the year at the winning team’s camp, is a golden toilet, formally dubbed the Berkshire Bowl.
This summer’s match went into extra time. A 3-1 win began with a brilliantly timed cross from Mohawk Unit Director Itai Gruss which left Fergus Butt, a day camp counselor, with the simple job of connecting with the ball to put the visitors in front. Sloane then equalized from the penalty spot and the game got tight
with Frontier UD Ian Ruiz-Carlile pulling off a string of game saving saves. After an inspiring huddle with the team manager, Assistant Day Camp Director Ahren Parry, they headed into extra time. Hi-Rock went in to the lead after Mohawk counselor, Daniel Holden, dispatched a stunning free kick from 30 yards away. The scoring was complete when Frontier counselor Ollie Kent neatly went around two defenders and slotted home the winner to secure victory.
Team Hi-Rock – London 2012
A group of Hi-Rock alumni (and other friends of Merritt Hopper) have been making their way from one Olympics to the next since the Salt Lake City games in 2002. This summer’s Olympics brought Merritt, Mat Brown, Justin Caplicki, Lauren Beckett, Monette DeBaun Stransom, Richard Stransom, Anthony Fletcher, Scott Elliot, Rob Oakley, and Tracey Baranck together in London. Of the experience, Merritt writes, “…we, as co-counselors, have made lifelong bonds. So many of our great counselors came from the United Kingdom in the 90’s so meeting at the Olympics in London was the perfect way to reunite!”
Junior Olympian
Campers who took martial arts as a coaching period this summer had a special treat – an instructor who just returned from the Junior Olympics in Texas where she won a bronze medal in Tae Kwon Do! Maddie Lesko was a day camp coun- selor this summer and taught martial arts to day and resident campers. Maddie became a Hi-Rock camper when she was 13. Her mother, Pauline Lesko, describes Maddie’s time at Hi-Rock as “part of her journey of self-confidence.” Maddie recalls trying sports at Hi-Rock, like wakeboarding, and getting excited about trying and mastering new sports. When asked what she likes most about teaching campers Maddie explained she “likes the feeling of their excitement when they get something – when they couldn’t understand it and then they get it and they become happy and their happiness spreads!”
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTS – Tim Morehouse
Many Hi-Rock campers spent this summer dreaming about being in the Olympics someday. Alumnus Tim Morehouse has realized that dream three times as part of the US Olympic fencing team. He is an Olympic silver medalist in fencing (’08 Beijing Games), two-time individual U.S. National Champion (’10 and ’11), 7-time world cup medalist and was #1-ranked U.S. men’s saber fencer from 2008- 2011. He also counts teaching President Obama how to fence in 2009 as one of his memorable fencing moments and returned to the White House this past September with the US Olympic and Paralympic Teams to visit the President and enjoy a hug from First Lady Michele Obama.
Tim has been busy since he last worked at Hi-Rock. In addition to the fencing achievements described above, Tim has a long list of accomplishments. He spent seven years working for Teach for America – three as a seventh grade teacher and four as a teacher trainer. In 2011, he founded the Fencing-in-the-Schools foundation – a non-profit program dedicated to bringing the sport of fencing to under-served communities throughout the country. He is also the founder and producer of the Fencing Masters Tournament, the largest spectator fencing competition in the U.S. and the only non-Olympic televised tournament in the United States. In April 2012, his auto-biography, American Fencer: Modern Lessons from an Ancient Sport, was published. To read more about Tim, visit timmorehouse.com.