Yours, at Camp Blue Heaven
Posted on Nov. 6, 1983From the University Report (published by the GAA 1970-94)
A happy band of 20 alumni families discovered another meaning for the name “Blue Heaven” when they spent the week of August 13-20 at the very first session of the Alumni Association’s new family camp. Camp Blue Heaven, tucked away in the North Carolina mountains west of Brevard and bounded on three sides by the Pisgah National Forest, was a refreshing oasis from the beastly hot days of August for the alumni pioneers who attended the camp’s inaugural week.
Alumni campers found “Blue Heaven” an inviting environment for a rendezvous with other alumni or for a mountain vacation with scattered family members. From the oldest camper, John S. Vaughan of the Class of ’31, to the youngest, who was my son Brian Charles, then 3 months, participants forged new friendships. The relaxed family-style meals, where all ages gathered together, did away with real and imagined age barriers.
Professor Joe Tulchin, UNC professor of history and head of the largest family of campers, provided a mini Vacation College series of evening lectures on Central America. Despite early morning reveille for those who started the day with white water rafting, canoeing down the French Broad River, horseback riding, or other physical challenges, the lively discussions with Professor Tulchin went on late into the night.
Tennis. volleyball, soccer and swimming provided traditional sports and plenty of competition. White water rafting, the most exhilarating challenge — down the Nantahala River for an eight-mile beginners’ course — provided spills and chills for the adventurous. Many youngsters enjoyed their first experience with horseback riding, archery, riflery, hiking, picking blackberries or gathering in the evening around the open camp fire. Camp Blue Heaven also offers arts and crafts, gymnastics, nursery facilities and outdoor worship services.
Alumni campers learned at Camp Blue Heaven about the University’s challenges and achievements and about our alumni family’s enormous diversity and breadth of interests. Furthermore, Blue Heaven served to remind them that the relationships that began during their first days of freshman orientation continue for life. “Continuing Education” has taken place and will continue under the stars in Western North Carolina at a special oasis called “Blue Heaven.”
An eight-year-old camper offered this evaluation of Blue Heaven as he waved good-bye on the last day of camp, “I’m coming back next year. If my parents don’t come, I’m going to hitchhike!”
Camp Blue Heaven will be held again next summer at the same site near Brevard. The dates are August 11-18. For further information write: Camp Blue Heaven, the General Alumni Association, PO Box 660, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.
(To tune of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”)
Lyrics by Philip Carl
Somewhere high in the mountains
Up a stream,
There’s a camp I remember
Lovely as any dream.
Somewhere flower-filled meadows
Come in view.
Friendships just like the flowers
There ever bloom anew.
Someday when I am old and gray
Tomorrow’s hopes will lie away behind me.
But somewhere in the mountain air
Beyond the em’rald forest fair
That’s where you’ll find me.
Somewhere butterflies lead me
‘Round a hill,
Past a falls streaming silver,
Flowing in mem’ry still.
Someday when I am old and gray
Tomorrow’s hopes will lie away behind me.
But somewhere in the mountain air
Beyond the em’rald forest fair
That’s where you’ll fine me.
‘Till that promised tomorrow
I’ll still yearn
To find Blue Heaven waiting,
Waiting for my return.
Yours at Carolina,
Douglas S. Dibbert ’70
