The case of the church fued at 2nd Baptist.  Split staff down middle.

We had mainly visited First Baptist McAleseter on Sunday because they were responsible for camp being there in the first place.  But Bro. Paul would let us attend anywhere in McAlester we liked.  Reece Watson sometimes went to Frink because his dad was pastor there for many years.  We even went to a homecoming there with a covered dish lunch.  Then came the case of Second Baptist.  Evans Bailey attended Second at the time because his own church he grew up had changed a lot and the pastor, O.J. Findley, had moved to the northeast. So Bro. Rob Grim had started being the pastor at Second Baptist Church.  It was in the original town area that was determined by the US Congress to be called North Town.  US Congress had to decided this because Mr. McAlester had established the original town during the Indian Territory days and congress ruled the area.  Newer town leaders came along and established a new commerce center at the junction of the Texas road, Texas railway, and State Highway 1.  US Congress then deemed the newer part as McAlester and the original town area as North Town.  So 2nd BC is in North Town, right next door to the J.J. Mc Alester mansion.  Well, their ballfield is the immediate neighbor to JJ's relatives.  We were very involved with second Baptist, way much more than at First.  We got involved with the softball teams and Bro. Paul even let some of the staff go in on a week night and play with their team.  I liked it because I would have them go by Amigo's (mama Dawn's) and get me some tacos or chocolate chimis.  So Evans told me that things at 2nd were not going so well at 2nd.  Some of the old members did not like Bro. Grim's preaching style.  It is no different than what you may see today at Lifechurch or Crossings, Bro. Grim was 30 years ahead of his time.  Problem we had was that there were staff at camp who were a part of the group who wanted Bro. Grim fired.  So he was fired by that group.  We had staff supporting him, and those opposed to him.  So Bro. Grim opens the pastor's study window from outside and removes all his personal items and on the next day, Sunday, he starts a new McAlester church.  I decided to help out Evan's family and I was with the group who visited the new church that met in an old Assembly of God building.  But things got even more weird when Bro. Paul took the pulpit supply job at 2nd Baptist.  But he was fair and let each one of us decide where to attend.  In the end of it all, most of us wound up back at First, where we had started.

Wacky weed found at camp.  Statute of limitations far exceeded.

It was my third year on staff as a fulltime summer worker and we were going to have our training cookout during staff training week.  We had moved the cookouts to the cattle trail and were hiking down there to the farthest cook pit area.  When we made the turn at the lake to the north, one of the staffers looked down and saw some rather healthy plants growing up about six feet tall.  They had a slightly blue tint and kind of looked like maple leaves but were thinner.  Yes, it was marijuana growing.  Now, set the wayback machine three years prior to my first year on staff.  We had a staffer who was an MK from parents who were missionaries to Panama.  You can do that math.  He and some others were not asked to return the next summer.  But my second year, we saw these "fishermen" take boats back to the creek near the cattle trail.  They always wore hats or warm up tops so we could not see their faces.  They set up trotlines which later we figued were a ruse.  We believe it was these guys who planted the mary jane at camp.  So we decided not to do anything right then as we needed to proceed carefully.  Well, first of all we didn't want a full blown raid on camp.  Even in 1980, the war on drugs was not nice.  So leadership decided to cut the wacky weed and burn it in the campfire pit.  The wind was from the northeast which meant the smoke would blow to through camp and dissipate before it the property.  Chances are, nobody outside of camp would be able to smell it.  So, they piled it up and caught it on fire.  The staff were told to shut all the windows and stay in the staffhouse.  But the smoke was very strong and the staffhouse smelled like burning rope.  Bill complained of welps as it turned out he was allergic to it. Evans told Bill not to attend any events at Lloyd Noble at OU because it was filled with mary jane smoke.   Bill went in to get some allergy cream.

A cobra hits Unit II.

It was a typical day and everything was going well until a call comes over the radio that there is a cobra located at Unit II, chapter 8.  I jump in a van and head up there.  I get up there and it was an agitated Western Hognose (as I later found out).  It did kind of look like a cobra as its body was flatened out. But it was not harmful and we could tell it was not a typical pit viper.  We moved it away from tent #8 and later a staffer who knew what it is identified it by description.

Wreck at dam, lots of sirens, three dead kids.

We were in the office again playing a tournament game on the computer.  It was a space simulation game based on adventure and you upgraded your ship, weapons, and got awareded space money for defeating aliens.  It was an extensive game and took the whole summer to complete.  We kept hearing siren after siren.  I didn't have the scanner at that time so we decided to get in a van and drive down to the dam area to see if they needed a boat for whatever happened.  We get to the dam and there are ambulances and police everywhere.  There was a car turned upside down in the spillway.  We decided they didn't need the boat and left.  It was reported in the paper the next day that three kids had died in a DUI crash.  We went out to the site and the spillway had lots of blood stains on the rock.  For many years, there was a cross memorial at the spot where the car had crashed.

The saga of Spilly Bob.

Bob Gilmore hated it when we called him spilly Bob.  But it was not necessarily if he spilled something, it was if anyone spilled something.  So how did it get started?  Well, Bob may have filled a trash bag a bit too much.  He was headed out the kitchen door when it split open and spilled trash just everywhere.  But another spilly Bob moment was when we installed the large water coolers in the dinninghall on the east wall.  It was Thursday supper and we had sandwiches and chips.  So the table hops come in and set up the table.  Then after the prayer they go in and get the tray of sandwiches and bowls of chips.  So I'm at Paul's table which is located between the two coolers instead of near the pop machine like it had been years before.  So this kid gets his bowl of chips and walks in front of one of the coolers.  It was hilarous to see the entire bowl of chips empty out and the chips flew all over the middle of the dinninghall.  Now that's the ultimate spilly Bob, Bob.

Camp gets mentioend in Oklahoma Supreme Court case.

Bob Gilmore had passed away while working for the McAlester schools.  He left his car to Camp Hudgens.  While Herb had it parked at a local mechanic shop, it was stolen out of the yard.  Turns out that Fowler, Norman had a lien on it.  The tow company cut the lock and broke the fence when they towed it out.  Jim Willimason of McAletser won a suit against Fowler for the damages.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ok-supreme-court/1087523.html

Gene Leroy Hart walks through camp?

Highly possible.  It was the 1973 riots and there were several escapes.  The northeast side of the prison was in flames.  Several prisoners go out before the state and local police got it locked down.  Gene Leroy Hart was one of those escapees.  He was full blooded Cherokee.  He was later given the association with having special powers of invisibility.  He avoided capture for many months and was later accused of committing the Girl Scout murders although he was found innocent at trial.  The week of the riot, there were deaf children there.  It was not hard keeping the real details from them and the staff simply told them it was a fire in town.  There was a group camped out on the other side of the lake that consisted of the Primitve unit, later renamed Unit III.  My older brother was with that group and a state highway patroll trooper showed up and told them to return back to camp where it would be safer.  It was a long tradition to canoe over and stay the night across the lake and return the next morning after breakfast.  We would often check on them as there was a road right up to where they landed.  They returned and I remember our car passing the still smoldering prison after that week to pick up my brother.  The next year was my first year at camp.

Then there was the saga of Indian Joe or Big Sam.
For many years, it was tradition to get the kids together in the cabin area and tell the story of an Indian or otherwise large escaped prisoner who roamed the hills at night preying on any campers that had snuck out of their cabins.  Although there was officially a ban on ghost stories at camp, the staffers did their level best to concoct a myriad of these strories in order to get the campers to go to sleep and not want to leave the cabin.  It came to a head one night when the staffers concocted the most elaborate stunt on the cabins in all the years of camp.  We had all these full hasmat suits with hoods and the several of the staff had put them on.  They also had some small flourescent flashlights and put them in the hoods.  It was a scene right out of, "Virus."  The story was evidently that aliens had landed and the government sent in agents to investigate.  The staff borrowed a deer head from Pennington lodge.  The deer played heavy as the alien and the kids were scared out of their minds that night.  Needless to say, we got a few letters and the skit was banned going forward.  It mostly worked but there was one time I had made a very late raid of the walkin cooler and upon returning I saw a kid running through the middle of camp (around 11pm).  Turns out he was an ADHD kid who escaped the cabin and was evidently running away for some reason. We got him back to the cabin and the counselor slept with one eye open the rest of the night.

Rainy Saturday morning we float over creek to get back to Pennington.

A staffer decided to drive across the cove, so he thinks.
Ray decides to drive across the cove in his truck in 1982 because the lake dried up.  He gets about half way and then sinks all the way to the axels.  He is so far out that a tow truck can't reach him.  He is sunk too low for us to reach a cable or chain to him from the tractor.  Thankfully for him, the bull dozer that was clearing a path for the new water line out to them main part of the lake was still working.  He had a chain and was able to pull him out of the lake.  The reported extra charge for doing that was $250.  He evidently lost a few weeks of wage to cover that tow.  

Two days of rain cure the drought and lake fills up. 

The drougt came to an end in 1983.  The line we buried under the lake floated up.  We had got leeches the year before because we had to dig a trench across the cove and we were bare footed at times.  It was a choice between ruining a pair of shoes or going bare footed.  We just had to remember to check between the toes for leeches.  The trench was only 2 feet deep and evidently the air in the line caused enough boyancy for the line to rise above the bottom of the cove.  The solution was to cut up some well casing pipe and slide it down.  We slid enough of them to get the line to sink.  In a couple years, it sunk down in the mud and was no longer a problem.  It helped that once we started using it on a regular basis, it had water in it all the time.  The line is still there but capped off on both sides.  The line out to the lake and the utility service was never fully completed.  After Jerry Kersey came along, we decided to dig a new line to the lake road and hook into the local water district water line.

Camp Caretaker brings wonderful groceries to Unit III, stays for dinner.
Mrs. Goddard had a set menu to cook for the week.  On way to get crossways with Mrs. Goddard was to dig into her groceries she needed for the week. We needed our own provisions in order to cook more than four meals out at Unit III.  Bro.Paul told caretaker LLoyd Ellis to get with me and have him go to town to get the food we needed.  I decided to make it a special week so I had Lloyd pick up things like pork chops, minute steaks, smores makings, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, etc.  We thought since Lloyd took good care of us, we needed to invite him for supper.  Lloyd brought even better items as the weeks progressed.  We even talked him into some T-bones the last week.

Charlie Loper rows out to sailboat after dark to ask why were were still on lake (with Gary Smith).
Gary Smith was the lakefront program director.  We had just got the Viper sailboat and he liked to be out on the lake for a sunset cruise.  One problem with that was that the wind died almost like clockwork as the sun was setting.  So I am one of the instructors at the lake and I'm out on the boat with him.  Instead of heading in before the winds totally die, we stayed out in the middle of the lake until they do.  We have evening devotion and then I hear this swosh, swosh, swosh coming from the darkness.  Soon we can make out a row boat and then see its Charlie Loper.  It was Wednesday night and time for the staff Bible Study.  Paul had sent Charlie to retrieve us from the lake.  He hooks up a rope and tows us back to the dock.  We send the campers back to their tent and make it back to the Bible study before it concludes.  Paul informs Gary not to do that again.

Staffer gets sent home over a softball game.

There was an era of the staff/counselor ball game.  It was classic game and the kids got a kick out of watching it.  We talked it up all week and in the days when campers went home on Saturday, the game took place on Friday evening after supper.  When we switched to going home on Friday, it was then Thursday after supper.  It stopped in Paul's later years, probably around 1995 for various reasons.  Most of all, we had a lot of the staff in the cabins during the night and it was a matter of the game changing.  So this staffer is trash talking all week about the game, as usual.  I should add that we had won the game the previous week.  It so happens, all of our best softball players were assigned this week to be counselors.  Then if memory serves me correctly, both Lane Buckly and Clyde Hughes are counslors that week.  The counselor side was a virtual dream team.  Not that the staff were out because we did have Charlie Loper on the staff team.  So this staffer is already worked up about the good players being counselors that week and he is making comments of same.  So it happens that Paul's grandson is visitnig that week.  Paul wants him included in the staff team.  So it all comes to a head on that fateful afternoon.  We make the rotation and the game goes on.  Its a slaughter.  The counselor side wins big time.  This particular staffer had already been on borrowed time because of getting into trouble the year before.  After the ballgame is over, we usually had vespers, then cleaned up and had the campfire service.  This is the time when campers made decisions.  I was taking it easy on my bed in the staffhouse (near the bathroom as a newby) and Bro. Paul came in.  That usually got us worried but he was just going to let the staffers know who were going to be counselors for the next week.  Since this staffer knew he was doing that, he decided to make a topical comment about choosing whom to be counselors. So this staffer says, "Bro. Paul, I think its a shame for you to pick staffers to be counselors just so that they can win the softball game.  You should not be rigging the game just to make us look bad."  Paul replies, "I am not sure why you are saying that because the people I picked had not yet been counselors this summer and it was their turn."  Then the staffer continues, "And by the way, I want to let you know that you are doing a horrible job as camp director and you really need to think about your decisions that are ruining this camp."  Ok, you have to know that this is in front of everybody in the main dorm part of the lodge.  Everybody heard this guy say these things.  So, Paul gets red in the temple and says, "Look, I have repeatedly let you have second chances over and over again as you did things I did not like and I promised your parents that I would work with you this summer after what you pulled last summer.  It is evident that you don't want to be here and I will make it easy for you.  I want you to pack up your bags and I want you off camp property in the amount of time that it takes for your mom to drive here to pick you up."  Well, it turned out the mom worked late and nobody could get him until the next day.  This guy had upset Paul so much that he told James to take him into town and get him a room at the Holiday Inn,which he did, and we never saw that guy at camp again.

The boat sinks, several times.

We had an old motorboat with a 40 HP Mercury motor.  It would barely pull a skier.  We justified it because of the active sailng program and it could be used to rescue boats that had turned over on the mian lake.  It was getting old and it leaked a bit.  It had a unique bilge system where you just pulled the drain plug as you drove around and it would suck out the water.  Therin was the fly in the ointment.  Staffers wouild pull the plug as they headed in and would forget to put it back when they pulled into dock.  One time, they had been out on Saturday and skied all day.  they returned to the dock and forgot to put the plug back in.  When we got back down there on Sunday afternoon to go out, it was gone.  But the chain that locked up the motor was still attached and locked.  So we find it in 10 feet of water.  We rigged up a rope system and tied every lifejacket we had one at a time until it floate up to the surface.  Then we could walk it to the beach and bail out the water.  The first time this happened, we took it in to Art Quadracci and he cleaned it up and got the motor running.  On the second time it happened, Art just told us to go to T.H. Rogers and buy a gallon of methanol and run through it until it ran smooth.  We had several boats through the years and I know that Dr. Tanner was curious why we had problems.  It was because we always got old, ran down boats.  We did our best to use good oil for the fuel mix and to buy gas in town at Texaco instead of the bulk delivery.  The gas they delivered to us was not bad, it was the old rusty tank.  Even when they changed out tanks to a gravity tank, the fuel was somehow dirty in it.  I warned staff not to use it in their own vehicles.  While I was there, I always went into town to get fuel for the boat. 

Gary argues with Charlie on who runs the water (lake) front program.

It was the first day of staff training of 1978.  I ride to camp with my brother and right there in front of the staff house is Gary and Charlie.  Gary is airborne Ranger and Charlie is USMC.  They are arguing about who is the boss of whom.  Gary is the lake director and Charlie runs the pool and lifeguard training.  Gary believes he is over the pool program under the auspices of "Waterfront director.."  But Paul referees the dispute and decrees that Charlie is over everybody at the pool and Gary is only over the people at the lake.

The boat comes off trailer, passes caretaker and goes into woods.

Its a friday morning and we are fast and furious getting the campers to Pennington, getting their refunds, running the camp store and concessions, and trying to close out camp for the week.  I'm at the refund table and Herb comes in and says, "I need you right now."  I tell him I can't leave for a while and he says, "No, I need you now, find someone to cover the table." So, I run into the office and tell Paul that Herb needs me and he finds a staffer who can run the table.  So Paul asks Herb what the deal is and Herb tells him that the boat came off the trailer, passed him on the road down the hill, and landed in the woods.  Paul pauses for a moment and then starts to laugh uncontrollably.    The way Herb told it was that he was headed down the road with his daughter Beth in the pickup cab.  He is looking straight ahead and Beth turns left to see the boad next to them on the road.  She then starts jabbing Herb and points and syas, "Da, da, da, boat, da boat," Herb looks at her in confusion and she points ahead of the pickup and says, "Da da boat."  He says, "what is it doing there, and where does it think its going."  It veers to the left and heads into the woods about 40 feet.  It hits a tree and comes to a stop.  We winched it out of the woods and took it to a good fiberglass worker.  He fixed it up just like new and only charged us for the materials.

I use oil rig maneuver to plug a water leak.

We were treating our water in Herb's early days in the early 90's.  There was a pump station at the waterfront that pushed water up to the treatment plant next to the dinninghall.  The muddy water ran through chemicals that first settled the mud then added purfication agents and then a final filtration and then to the tower.  One day I was headed to the dinninghall for something and noticed a very large amount of water comoing from the treatment plant and running down the hill.  I was training in operating the plant and had a key. I opened the door and noticed that a plastic pipe had come loose at a joint.  There was a valve down stream of the joint that was closed and it lead to the settling tamk.  I remember that with oilwell blowouts, they will install an open valve over the well and then close it.  That's what I did.  I opened the valve and reattached the loose line.  then I closed it.   I also went down to the boathouse and turned off the power to the pump until Herb could check it out.  I was covered in muddy water and had to go shower and change into dry clothes.

Caretaker's grandkids set fire behind shop the week of the tragedy at the lake.

It was the Thursday afternoon of the accident week at the lake.  We closed out camp early so staff could attend the funeral.  The groups were all gone and I was headed to the dinninghall to say goobye to Mrs. Goddard before heading home.  The phone rang and it was Lloyd's wife.  She said there was a fire near the shop and she didn't know what to do.  I quickly looked down at the house and saw white smoke.  I knew we had to get a hold on it because it we waited for the local volunteer station to arrive the shop would be gone, it was filled with wood and chemicals.  I was in my truck and just drove down but saw Don Fine at the parking lot.  I told him there was a fire and to grab all the fire extinguishers and head down to the shop.  Right away, I noticed it was a grass fire just northwest of the shop.  I grabbed a water hose at the house and got it close enough to fill buckets with water to get the grassfire under control.  Lloyd arrived and started a leaf blower and blew the burned leaves back into the burned area.  This was the first time I saw that and he said that's what the leaf blower was for.  Don arrived with the fire extinguishers and I was glad because we had some tires that just would not go out.  Paul and Betty also arrive with more extinguishers.  We would just drench them in water and it seemed like they were out, and then you look back and in a puff the whole thing is a big ball of flame.  We emptied an extinguisher on each tire and that snuffed the fire.  I started looking around and noticed some firework fountains in the middle of the burned area.  I picked it up and gave it to Lloyd.  He then looks at his two visiting grandsons and says, "You could have burned down everything down here."   Paul and Betty tell us they are leaving before anything else happens.  I tell him that me and Don are behind them.

The staffhouse was frought with stunts and practical jokes.  The bunk in the ceiling, moving the bunk, the chlorine bomb, the NBA and the

remote, Conehead Nigh court.  Climbing the water tower.

We had these staffer twins that wanted to be highway patrolmen. They had attended the annual event for high schoolers at Burns Flat where they shoot the weapons and do the tactical driving training.  There were a bit much and needed some pranking.  Some staffers riged up a pulley system above one of their bunks.  Then they slowly pull the bed higher and higher until he finally wakes up about 8 feet in the air.  The other twin gets tied up on his bed and transported over to Pennington when he wakes up.  We had planned to do the Morty skit from meatballs but he woke up too early.  The next one is that Dave Nixon was fresh from the Army and wanted to make a special effect for the campfire service.  His manual showed a way for a fire to start after about 10 minutes of mixing up chemicals.  He needed to test it out so he asked me for some chlorine tabs.  I gave him a few tabs to play with.  Me and Herb are in the truck headed to town when we pass the staffhouse and notice smoke coming out of every window in the lounge.  It did not have a/c at the time.  It was a deep white smoke.  I thought it could be something burning on the stove so I grabbed the extinguisher from Pennington.  I went in and right away noticed a very strong chlorine smell.  I could see there was no fire and the smoke was billowing out of the sink.  I went out and caught a big breath then went in and turned the water on in the sink.  It snuffed out the small fire that was burning in a glass in the sink.  Turns out that Dave had mixed the chlorine tabs with brake fluid.  It didn't cause a reaction like he thought and he just left the glass in the sink until it did react, just much later.

It was the NBA finals during staff training week.  The staff settled into the staff lounge for the game.  I had taken the remote control for the tv earlier.  Me and another staffer go up to the attic loft where we can see down on them watching the game.  I started changin the channel when someone made a shot.  They had to continually change the channel back. We later fessed up to it and I'm sure they got even with us.

We had an old black and white tv in my apartment in Pennington.  The top part of the screen stretched out the picture so it made some programs extra funny.  The only programs we could watch were on later, after 10:30.  So that first program we picked up on Tulsa TV was Night Court.  The character, Bull was always framed to the top of the screen.  So he looked like conehead.  The other character, Dan also had very tall hair so we nicknamed him, "Dan King." 

The water tower just sat there wanting to be climbed.  Nobody knew how well the welds on the ladder were after more than 30 years.  But we were willing to try.   It was not a fun climb.  It looks so easy on the ground.  First you had to climb an extension ladder to get to it.  So about half way up, you got the gitters.  But you really had to make it the rest of the way.  So you went to the top and had the best view of the Lake McHoma area, Bucklucksy Township.  You could also see into town quite well.  We always took a marker up there and signed our names.  The climb down was just as hard as you just went slowly and didn't look down.

We coulda been in pictures!

There was some plans made to film a movie at camp much like, "Dances with Wolves."  A Choctaw Indian city was going to be constructed at Unit III and on the plateau where the Scipio trail remnants are.  Locals would be hired as extras and camp would get several authentic teepees.  The primary funding was to come from Ron Howard and Pam Dawber.  It never made it out of development and it never got green lit.

Another movie went farther in planning.  A guy showed up with a letter of permission from. Dr. William G. Tanner to use Camp Hudgens for a motion picture based on a summer camp.  We went around with the group and showed them all the areas.  They were excited about what they could use without a lot of changes.  But then things got weird in that they wanted to construct more elements that did not exist such as a flowing stream.  We have a stream but it was not very flowing unless it had rained a lot.  Then they wanted to build more tents to match a specific camp that the movie was about.  Turns out the movie was to be about the Girl Scout murders at Camp Scott.  We made a phone call to the Baptist Building and let Dr. Tanner know that was their intention.  Turns out that he had got his information through a Shawnee church where he knew the pastor.  The pastor was told it was a movie about a camp but not about Camp Scott.  Needless to say, Dr. Tanner removed his endorsement and thus their using camp ended right there.

Wiring up the buggle speaker in the staffhouse.

I got up early everyday to play reville each morning.  But the staff stayed in bed as long as they could and Bro. Paul was having to go in and wake them up just before the morning roll call at the flagpole.  So I decided maybe the staff couldn't hear the buggle very well.  The first one I installed was visible and was taken down and disconnected.  The next time I hid it further in the area above the cubicals.  Someone found it and again removed the wires.  I then placed it in the old lft storage area where the exhaust fans were.  I made it hard to get to but they still found it and removed the wires.  On my final attempt, I decided to not have a bugle speaker there at all and instead use a boom box with the bugle tape.  So I carried the boom box over there and just played reville from it.  I think they finaally got the message and made a better attempt at getting to flapole on time.

There was a time when just about all the staff went to Falls Creek when Hudgens was over.  It was when Laddie and Bro. Paul ran the rec staff at Falls Creek.  Falls Creek started later back then and we missed a couple weeks.  They would have other people do the rec staff until Hudgens was over.  I remember my first year to work Falls Creek was in 1979.  I worked pop and ice cream.  There were lots of neat girls and I handled the big case packs of pop bottles.  Me and Gene Daley handled the empties.  I would go sell them to the pop dock.  I made an extra $40 per week and at the time I was paid $35 per week.  The next several years I was on the ref staff for volleyball and softball.  We were no longer asked to help out around the mid 80's because Gary Fielding wanted to hire hiw own staff.

A former counselor threatens to sue.

A former counselor was arrested in a sting operation at a park in the OKC metro area.  He had been involved in a metro church's R.A. program.  But that church had already banned him from  the program.  We got a call from the pastor telling us he was not longer affiliated with the church and if he showed up, he was not to be near their kids.  We hadn't heard from him and then on a Monday at 2PM his car barrelled down the middle of camp and down to the cabins.  We knew exactly who it was.  We sent down a staffer to tell him to get back up to the office.  The staffer found him unloading all his gear into the cabin we usually assigned him.  He drove back up and asked what the problem was.  We told him he had not registered and we did not need any extra counselors for the week.  He said he was not going home.  We told him since a church had not sponsored him, legally we could not let him stay unless he passed our own background check system and we did not want to do that so late in the summer.  So he angrily left.  He then sent a demand letter through a lawfirm stating he indended to sue for sending him home.  Our attorney said he welcomed any such inquiry or action.  But it never made it that far.  He was arrested as a local school bus driver where some kind of incident happened.  The media made a circus of it because of his prior problems.  He left us alone after that.

Staffers cook a snake.

Someone found a copperhead and they killed it.  We didn't always do that unlesss it was found in the residence areas.  Instead of tossing it, the staff gutted and filleted it.  He rolled it in corn meal so it really had a taste like catfish.  Well, it was more like catfish meets chicken.  I tasted a small part and did not really like it. Other things we cooked in the staffhouse include deer meat, nachos, pizza, casseroles, bbq on the breezeway, hobo dinners, stew, etc.

The Camp Vendors

I thought I would take time to mention some of the fine places we did business with in town.  Of course there was Walmart.  Ok, first of all, it was a Walmart home store.  There were none in any of the larger metro areas.  We thought it was the best thing ever.  You could run to town and get anything you needed.  They purchased the old Pittsburg County Fairground and it moved to the west side of town.  Then Walmart built one of largest Super Centers in the U.S.A.  They said they did $5M in sales the first week.  Then in town, you had Gibsons.  It had stuff Walmart didn't carry like farm supplies.  It later turned into Atwoods.  Then there were the ma and pa stores we loved so much.  Diamond Hardware was great.  Next to it was Diamond Sports.  They did a lot of sports printing for the region.  T.H. Rogers Lumber was almost a daily trip and they supplied lumber for many of the buildings like the cabin remodel and the store extension.  Early on, Hudgens Lumber was still in business but that was before my time.  The oldest place we bought from was Union Iron.  They were in a 1900 period building as it was a former iron smelter.  It turned into a general plumbing and HVAC supplier.  Then we had Lalli plumbing for fixtres.  That's Dino Lalli's uncle.  Early on there was McAlester Wholesale.  We bought all camp food from them.  Then we always bought chicken and eggs from Oak Ridge Poultry.  Yes, excellent free range products.  Later came Indian Nation's Wholesale.  Then we went to Sysco.  You had Ben E. Keith, Mellani, William E. Davis, and US Foods.  Can't forget NAPA, Finnemore paint, and Benjamin Moore.  Then there were the Tonys.  No, not the award, Tony Refrigeration and Tony's Chemicals.  We banked at First National Bank, an old timey bank with old fashioned customer service.  We did business at Tandy Town shopping center.  Yes, there was a town named Tandy   Tandy was one of the old Choctaw families of Indian Territory.  The Tandy family formed the town of Tandy, west of McAletser but actually prior to the town being formed by JJ. Mac.  The family created a leather dynasty that later turned to electronics when it went public.  Then they built a modern, successful shopping center at US69 and Carl Albert.  It bustles to this day and has one of the oldest original Radio Shack stores.  It was always occupied so it must have been a good profit center.  Early on, there was Tandy Leather and Radio Shack.   Then Tandy Leather closed and we did a lot by catalogue.  Radio Shack was a favorite through the years if you could get them to recognize our state issued tax permit.  There was a Benjamin Franklin store there which was like TG&Y if you remember them.  There was a Sears Catalogue center that had some items on hand.  We liked Tandy Town Shopping Center because it had a McDonalds with a caboose, Long John Silvers, a Pizza Inn, and Charles Chicken.  Further on south on US 69 or The George Nigh Parkway, you had Arby's, Taco Bell, Giacomo's, KFC, Sizzlin Sirloin, and Chinese.  As the oil boom hit in late 90's, dozens of new motels opened up in the box style.  Of course you have the old Hiway Lodge and McHoma Lodge.  On around to the south of town on US 69 you have the Cinema 69 with a former drive in.  We saw movies such as, "Friday the 13th" which was about a summer camp.  I saw most Star Trek movies at the drive in.  We sat through, "Truman Show" and then wondered what we had just seen.  Movie prices were cheap, concessions were very reasonable.  Then there is a great steakhouse called The Brangus Feed Lot.  A great steak and lots of good sides.  On around up Main was Taco Pronto.  Taco Bob, as they called him ran the front register.  Excellent guacamole.  Early in the days, we had Amigo's.  Mama Dawn from FBC McAlester ran it.  She also owned a rental store and a a cable channel.

How to wire a bugle system.

Charlie Farmer, with a 1 mile spool of US Army surplus bell wire, a week in the dense jungle of Shawnee Hills and you have a working bugle system.  It originated at first at the Temple of Silence.  There was a tube operated amp with a built in turntable.  They played wax records of bugles and the vespers music was mostly Ralph Carmicle.  You knew when a bugle call was coming because you heard the scratch of the record start.  We heard it out at Unit II because Charlie had wired it up to a power pole.  It was a 70 volt system.  That allowed it to run as far as it did else wise the line loss would have made it impossible.  My brother Steve took over the maintenance and he went with a new 100 watt amp and a tape player.  Bro. Paul's brother in law is Ken Meyers.  He is Betty's brother.  Another famous Meyers was married to Fran Bartlett, Gene's daughter.  He ran music at the time at Metro Church.  So Ken provided the Lord's Prayer that ended vespers all those years.  Ken worked up a set of tapes for the week that timed out exactly to 15 minutes.  That ended having to guess the run time of tapes and then slip in the prayer at the end.  Later when Jerry came along, we changed it to praise music.  Then when Jerry left I changed it to just some nice tunes from the latest groups that the staffers liked a lot.  I made sure to update the list each year.  It played from a computer in the camp store.  I no longer ran a wire to Unit I and Unit III.  I transmitted the music over a radio frequency to receivers in the lodge and dorm.  You could also make localized announcements with microphones located at each location.  You could access the radios from a walkie (if you had that channel programmed in).  I also automated the bugles.  We had set times for bugles such as Reveille, assembly, end of rest time, Church Call, and Taps.  I used a program that played specific music files at specific times.  I only had to trigger bugles to lower or raise the flag.  Not sure what they did when I left.

We lose a staffer.

First of all, the official account by the state HP is below.  I will epxplain some inconsistencies that came out early on.  First, John was not a camper, he was the canoeing instructor.  Second, the campers were not in any danger that morning and the reason that Charles, Norman (missionary), John, and camp pastor were on the catamaran that morning was the wind was too high to let campers on the lake.   The morning started the same as any other.  It was Tuesday and we had breakfast then chapel.  But it was different in that Chuck, John Rhea, and John Hoskins stayed behind a bit after the service had ended.  We talked briefly and thought how nice a day it was.  I left them to go to the office and start my duties there.  That summer I was assigned mainly to the office because James Warren had left after getting married.  I was working on printing up the banking refund envelope labels we used to give campers their money back on Saturday morning.  It was a TRS-80 system I had built and modified.  I also built a UPS to keep it from crashing because the electrical grid was horrible back then.  The power in the office briefly blinked off and on.  I soon heard someone driving up the hill very fast.  I noticed it was Pat, one of the lake instructors.  He came to a a screetching halt in the parking lot and ran in saying a pwer line was down in the lake.  I asked why he didn't use the radio system to call and he said he just headed up the hill to get help.  I pressed the squak box to the health center and alerted Bro. Paul. I headed back down with Pat in his truck and we arrived to a strange situation.  Observing the "scene safe" technique taught by Red Crosss I carefully approached the area where campers were standing.  It really does come back and I still have vivid memories of what the waterfront looked like that day.  First, there was no power line down.  The catamaran was beached just east of the Unit I dock.  The mast was down and laying across the ground.  The power lines looked fine to me. Next, there were not a lot of campers there.  Just about 10 or so.  I asked them what happened and one pointed out to the lake and said, "He went down over there."  I then notice Charles sitting in the motorboat, which at the time we used to tie up at Dock #1.  I asked him what happened and he was in a daze and pointed out to the lake and said, "John is out there somewhere."  I see the camp pastor sitting on Unit II dock.  He was in a severe state of shock and could not talk at all.  By then Lloyd had arrived and I told him to go back to his house and call an ambulance for the pastor.  I notice the camp missionary sitting near the boathouse and ask him what happened.  He is not of a right mind and says John grabbed the boat and was shocked, he was in the lake.  He then couldn't stop saying, "Sweet Jesus what have I done."   This all happened very fast. I get pat and tell him we have to start a search pattern.  The water level was unusually high and that contributed to the accident.  In hindsight, I should have started my search right down the wire line.  I could have looked up and saw the char mark on the wire strand.  But the campers kept pointing to a different location away from that point.  Pat and I start a grid search from that area.  Then the mssionary joins us and I start worrying about him. He's in shock and grabs a row boat and starts walking around the lake repeating "Sweet Jesus."  Paul and Betty arrive with more staffers and Don Fine starts helping with the search.  Lloyd gets back puts on a lifejacket and starts helping.  But we were not searching the actual point where John went down.  The guy who was designated as the lake patrol shows up.  The county EM director shows up along with an ambulance.  We had a half dozen staffers doing the grid search when Paul tells us to get back to shore so they can search with a boat and drag line.  Paul tells me to go to the office and make sure the phone is monitored.  He reminds me I should not discuss anything with anyone who calls.  Don Fine is posted to the main gate.  The ambulance arrives and it takes Norman and Chuck to the hospital.  A McAlester police officer arrives.  I am not aware of what is going on in the rest of the camp at the time but evidently as ativities ended, people were just hanging on for any news and things kind of stopped.  I got one phone call from a close supporter of camp and one of Pauls dearest friends.  He said he was in his car on the way to work when he heard on the ONN that there was an accident at a church camp in McAlester and someone was missing.  Don Fine comes up to the office and says they found John and he was deceased.  He said Paul wanted me back down at the lake and he would man the office.  I went back down and another ambulance was headed out, taking John into town to the funeral home.  Paul tells me to go up to the staff house and get a box and collect up all of John's items and take them to the Mills home in town.  I go up and several of the staff are there as camp has come to a stand still.  I get all his items and take them to the Mills home and return to camp.  Paul had the flag placed at half staff.  Laddie Adams is there as he planned a visit that day already. Laddie is offering his help to the staff.  I get the word Norman, Chuck, and the pastor are ok but their families were on the way to take them home.  Paul told me to go down to the waterfront with some staff and get the cat out of the water and to a trailer.  When I got to the cat, I then noticed why the mast had fallen, all the guy wires were burned off.  We move it around to its trailer then we notice a hand print on the side of one pontoon.  We moved the trailer behind the caretaker's home and eventually someone bought it.  I went to the dinninghall and hadn't thought about how this would affect Mrs.Goddard.  I went in the back door and she comes to me in tears.  She says she never wanted to hear of anyone dying at camp.  She said it had made her so sad.  Like a lot of people, she only heard bits and pieces so I told her what happened.

A lawyer for the Hoskins showed up at camp to depose the staff who were involved.  Thankfully I was not included except he asked me for a copy of the map of the lake, which we had from the USGS.  He had already reasearched that any lake over three square miles had restrictions for electrical service.  The map showed Lake McAlester was 3 square miles.  He had to get proof of that later.  He interviewed an invovled staffer and things got emotional very quick.  I knew this could be bad because emotions got involved.  We finished out the week and for the next week's registration packet, some of the registration forms said, "Our kids will not be on that boat that hit the line."  We had a section on the health form that gave permission for lake activities.  Some of the parents marked through it so their kids got a double dose of land skills that week.  The funeral was on Friday afternoon in Yukon and we dismissed camp early so everyone could attend.  It was at Yukon FBC.  One entire half of the sanctuary was filled with Boy Scout groups.  Some of John's high school friends did the music.  Internment was at the local cemetary.  Because it was so close, everyone went to the grave side service. 

The next week was hard on everybody because the staff needed to give those campers the best experience possible.  What made it harder was that the counselors and campers wanted to talk about the incident, which we were forbidden at that time.  the only difference in operations at the lakefront was we only allowed Dolphin sailboats until the line was moved.  The resulting legal case was against the power utility and the city of McAlester.  The power line was for Unit III.  It was 15,000 volts.  Things went back and forth and the defendents later attached camp to their side.  The family had already exempted camp from liability but the utility said a contractor hired by camp put up the line and they had dimished responsibility.  But they had signed off on the installaion of the line.  John's dad had really impressed on the utility to move the line away from the lake.  The first thing they did was raise it about ten feet higher.  Alvin called and asked and when Paul told him ,he was understandably livid.  His lawyer came back down and took photos.  Then a crew arrived and re-routed the line almost straight west and raised it to around 35-feet high.  It would be next to impossible for anything camp owned to hit the line.  But Alvin was not impressed.  He came to camp to see for himself and he said, "I'm still not happy about this, I wanted the line routed down the road totally away from the water."  So, the line is there to this day but its higher than any craft that could ever be placed on that lake.

The weekend prior to the accident was Father's day.  Nobody was allowed to stay at camp that weekend.  I had taken John home to Yukon because it was not that far from my house in west OKC.  He had a nice ranch style home his dad had built in the north side of central Yukon.  He didn't want me to have to drive all the way back so he told me to pick him up at the McDonalds on US 66.  It as Sunday afternoon and I go in and order some food and we sit for a short time to finish eating.  He talks about some of his Boy Scout projects and mainly the leadership projects he was involved with.  I told him that leadership was not my strong ponit.  He said that leadership was not something you just picked up, you developed it through time.  I could tell his Boy Scout invovlement had benefited him greatly.  I had not had the best impression of them until I met John.  Usually when they came to camp, they didn't like it very much.  John was not that way at all, there was never a time he insulted anything we did at camp.  That was very unusual for someone of John's level with the scouts.  Especially with Eagle Scout order of the Arrow.  If anyone starts a forest fire, it will be one of them, usually.  I made a rule they couldn't come on any of my backpacking trips.  Not because they know more, but because there is nothing they won't do on a trip and that includes lighting a campfire with white coleman fluid.

Before the summer was over, I told Paul that starting the next summer, I wanted to run the lakefront program.  He told me to take all the necessary classes with Red Cross.  So, I took lifeguard and water safety instructor.  I returned for 1986 and was waterfront director.  I made some strict rules about the use of lifejackets by everybody.  It turned out that none of the people in the accident had lifejackets on that morning.