Here’s a great early photo collage of Rockbrook girls from the 1926 camp catalog. Kells Hogan brought it over to us after finding it among his mother’s artifacts. She attended camp in her youth. We love how the photos show the real spirit of adventure the girls had back then. It looks like there was plenty of dressing up going on too!
Recognize those waterfalls?
We ran into this quote the other day and thought we should share it. It’s from Charles William Eliot, who at 35 was the youngest president of Harvard University.
“I have a conviction that a few weeks spent in a well-organized summer camp may be of more value educationally than a whole year of formal school work.”
It’s nice to see the value of camp being endorsed by highly educated people. We agree. Camp is educational in the broadest, but also most fundamental, sense of the word. Through personal experience, it offers opportunities to forge connections and nurture children far beyond what school can provide. There’s really nothing quite like camp!
Sarah Reed Carter is the Director of Rockbrook. She grew up in Winston-Salem, NC and began her Rockbrook career in 1985. Sarah thought it would be fun to be a CIT (Counselor in Training) while her older sister was a cabin counselor. So at 16, she had her first camp experience not realizing what a big part of her life Rockbrook would be years later.
Sarah returned to camp year after year while attending Trinity College in Connecticut and until starting graduate school at Vanderbilt University for her Masters of Education degree. She taught drama, worked as a lifeguard, and served almost every age group as a cabin counselor. Along the way, she met her future husband Jeff, who at the time worked as a hiking and climbing guide for camp. Sarah and Jeff were married at Rockbrook in 1996.
For the next 8 years, Sarah taught elementary school in Nashville, TN, Concord, NC, and Asheville, NC. After returning to Brevard, she became the director of a local preschool for 2 years before returning to Rockbrook to be a full-time director with Jeff.
While camp is in session, Sarah oversees camp life and communication with parents. During the off-season, she works on camper recruitment, communication with Rockbrook’s camp families, and child specific issues. She also loves spending time with Jeff and her two daughters Eva and Lily.
It’s so easy to enjoy horseback riding at camp. Everything is right there for you: beautiful horses, wonderful instructors, excellent equipment and riding facilities, and other youth to ride with.
Part of that enjoyment comes from befriending a special horse, from being paired with a graceful powerful animal you grow to trust and who trusts you. It’s really a special relationship. With kind and gentle communication, you and your horse become more responsive to each other, and more comfortable together. There’s nothing quite like it— the feeling of power and freedom you experience when you and your camp horse willingly cooperate and ride.
It’s also a real accomplishment for a youth girl to build this kind of friendship with a horse at camp. It takes patience and a caring attitude, but with good instruction and practice, every girl can do it. Every girl can experience the joy of horseback riding.