Exhibit Details
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening during a summer camp week, the camp turns into one big game as Scouts scavenge, hunt, perform, run, tackle, jump and a host of other verbs in their quest to be the top patrol or troop that night.
Gong Show Pictures
Display Details
Basically a talent show that goes off the rails, here are some pictures of the campwide game that was popular in the 1970s and occasionally gets a reprise in later years.
Boomtown
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Speculators get their hard-earned cash and then spend it on all manner of things during Camp Horseshoe’s Boomtown.
Pictures
Videos
If the weather’s nice, and the gold is plentiful, the staff holds a Boomtown down on the parade field with lots of lights, music, dancing… and gold!
2005 – Contributed by Anonymous
Scouts and staff dance around as the Emcee serenades the lot with his twangy drawl.
2005 – Contributed by Anonymous
Clarke Green, Ed Milner and other staffers provide a fabulous international-flavored show for those willing to spend their hard-earned boomtown bucks.
1992 – Contributed by Andrew Smith
These Scouts seem to have won a Boomtown prize where they have to sing “Don’t Stop Believing” to the audience.
2012 – Contributed by Anonymous
Gold Rush
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A popular campwide game that started in the mid-forties was the Gold Rush where campers would pan for gold in the Octoraro. That evening, the Scouts would gather in Kindness Center for a Boomtown.
Pictures
Narratives
This article first appeared in the July 2001 issue of the HSRAA newsletter, The Octoraro Loop.
1944 – Contributed by John B. Rettew III
Yes GOLD! The year was 1944 (and numerous years since then) that gold was found in the bed of the Octoraro Creek near the Swinging Bridge (OA) and the Boat Docks that then were off the Horseshoe Athletic Field
Gold fever was rampant through each of the five stockade camps as news arrived during the afternoon ‘siesta’. The campers were mobilized for the search for the precious stone – it was like 1849 and the Gold Rush of that earlier day. Scouts were in a frenzy…leaders did not know what to do to hold their minions back from rushing to the Creek! Finally, Program Director J. Holland Heck and Camp Director Frank Beam coolly issued the plan to the assembled camp so that all could enjoy the wealth the gold would surely bring!
Each Stockade was given instructions that they were to proceed to the Creek in bathing suits and old shoes with appropriate buckets to pan for the gold. When they got to the Creek, each unit was to stake out their claim in the Creek. “Revenooers” were there to make sure there was no claim jumping. Once the gold was found, the unit was to proceed to the Assayer’s Office where the gold would be weighed and exchanged for “money.”
Well, I can remember mucking from here to there for some time before my bunkmates and I came up with the gold rock! We turned it in and were richly rewarded!
That night, in Kindness Center, a Boom Town was built with all sorts of games of chance (and skill) where we could spend our newly found riches!
What a day! What a fun time for a first year camper as well as those who had been to camp for many years!
Miscellaneous
Display Details
A wide-variety of images, videos, and documents for Camp Horseshoe campwide games.
Pictures
Videos
Here the staff is setting up for a campwide game.
2001 – Contributed by Alexander Musto
The SPLs meet with the staff to get their instructions for the start of the game.
2009 – Contributed by Andrew Coe
Documents
This letter, addressed to “The Chosen”, might have been used as a Phozz for a campwide game, though its ambiguity suggests many possibilities. You decide.
1990 – Contributed by Andrew Coe
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