Shoal Creek alumni celebrate camp’s lasting impact
11/06/09HEATHER HAHN
Editor
NEW BLAINE – Ken Bell took home more than memories from his summers at Shoal Creek Camp.
“I met the love of my life here,” he said, squeezing the hand of his wife of 41 years, the former Barbara Angeletti.The Bells were among dozens of Shoal Creek alumni who returned to the western Arkansas campsite to reminisce, catch up with old friends and celebrate the 50th anniversary of a United Methodist institution where youngsters still come to encounter God’s creation.
The 22-acre camp, which has capacity for 104, has served as a place of refuge for growing youth, for traveling college groups and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, for 89 evacuees from the Gulf Coast.
During the open house on Oct. 17, alumni toured their old cabins, enjoyed a hot dog lunch in the dining hall and then toasted marshmallows and munched on s’mores around a cozy campfire.
The following night, 210 alumni and friends also attended a dinner and program to honor the camp at First United Methodist Church in Fort Smith. The program included a performance by the Reunion Hand-Chime Choir, recognition of the Kelley Family who donated the land for the camp and praise for two Eagle Scouts’ projects at the site. Coach Frank Broyles, retired athletic director at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, delivered a keynote address about the passion that has made the camp possible for 50 years.
At both events, United Methodists exchanged recollections of cabin pranks, snipe hunts and silly camp songs. They also shared how Shoal Creek Camp guided their Christian walk.
Over the years, hundreds of young Christians have made their first profession of faith at the camp and several others have discerned their call to the professional ministry.
Betsy (formerly Freeman) Farris, a member of First UMC in Fort Smith, fondly remembers climbing atop the local landmark “Tater” Hill for a sunrise devotion on the last day of camp. She stills carries in her wallet a copy of a religious poem that was read during that morning meditation more than 40 years ago.Talmadge Talkington, who attended the first week of camp in July 1959, traveled from Grand Prairie, Texas, outside Dallas, to attend the anniversary festivities.
He had grown up at the Methodist Church in Lavaca where there were only three or four other youth his age. For him, the camp provided the fellowship of a church youth program, and he forged lifelong friendships in the summer heat.
Some memories weren’t quite so wholesome, he admitted. With a chuckle, Talkington recounted an incident that downright stank.
He and a friend once tried to catch a skunk to put in the girls’ cabin.
“Before we got the skunk, the skunk got us,” he said. “We smelled so bad, they wouldn’t let us sleep in the cabin. We had to sleep outside.”
Shoal Creek also is where many teens have experienced their first crush and sometimes even have met their lasting love.
Barbara Bell was among the youth who attended a week-long camp during Shoal Creek’s first summer. But it was a couple of years later when her time at camp overlapped with the young man she would ultimately marry. She was going into 10th grade, her first year at Fort Smith High School, and Ken Bell was entering 11th grade at the same school.
“The very first time I saw him he was down by the swimming hole,” she said. “He was sitting on a blanket with one of his guy friends and a ukelele.”
She had already heard his name dreamily mentioned by another girl at camp. But when Barbara first spotted Ken, she acknowledged she initially wasn’t very impressed.
“I thought, ‘I don’t know what’s so hot about him,’” she recalled with a laugh. “But we sat there and talked a while. He had a big grin, and I thought, ‘You know, he really is cute. There’s something about him.’”
During the camp’s early years, Herschel McClurkin Jr. — then the youth director at First UMC in Fort Smith — served as a Shoal Creek director. A half century and many moves as a pastor later, McClurkin again volunteers as co-director of the camp with his wife, Mardell.
“The camp has been such a meaningful experience for us that we want to keep sharing it with others,” Herschel McClurkin said.
He said the camp has seen some changes in its 50 years. The bathhouses have been enlarged and central heating and cooling added to the dining hall.
Campers no longer refresh themselves in a swimming hole with a rope swing after the Arkansas Department of Health announced the water wasn’t safe for swimming. In 1998, the camp added a swimming pool.
Shoal Creek also now faces more competition from secular summer activities such as band, cheer-leading and sports camps, McClurkin said.
“Once we get people there they want to come back,” his wife said, “but we have to work extra hard contacting churches and individual families to get them to make that first visit.”
Today, Shoal Creek offers day camps for kindergartners through second-graders as well as overnight camps for older elementary school students and teenagers. Shoal Creek is also home to an annual music camp as well as one of the state’s few sign-language camps for the deaf and hearing impaired. Mardell McClurkin takes particular joy in leading camps each summer on earth stewardship and the liturgical seasons of the Christian year.
One thing that hasn’t changed in the past 50 years is Shoal Creek’s mission.
“Having youth commit themselves to full-time Christian service was the motivator for starting the camp,” Herschel McClurkin said. “We strive to help young people understand their relationship to Christ.”
Ken and Barbara Bell, members of Greenwood United Methodist Church, both attest that Shoal Creek helped strengthen their faith and shape their values.
“Once you come here,” Barbara Bell said, “you always take a piece of it with you.”
Shoal Creek relies mainly on individual donations to offer its camps. Donations can be mailed to Shoal Creek Camp in care of West District Office, 4010 Grand Ave., Fort Smith, Ark. 72904.
