Camp Green Lane Blog Post July 31st

Today was all about the spellers and the storytellers.

There are many athletic events that are part of a Camp Green Lane Color War. Like this morning’s Tugs of War, there are loads of events and activities that measure strength and speed and teamwork. We play basketball and soccer and swim and run all week.

And then there’s today, when superstars can emerge away from the fields and courts.

This afternoon we held the annual Color War Spelling Bee, where 20 campers and counselors take a deep breath and try to spell their way through one of the more dramatic competitions of the week. Everyone on Green and White packs the GLOBE with the 10 competitors coming forward, one by one, to correctly spell their word.

Inter Boys and Girls, Debs and Cadets, Senior Boys and Girls, Greeks and staff all had representatives on stage. The favorite was Orioles counselor Patrick Buerke, a two-time past champion of the Bee. This year would be a tough test for Patrick and the Green, starting with the first word of the day—wide—which claimed the first three competitors.

Then it was bread, dolphin, towel, squid, whisk, snout, taboo, and it would get progressively harder deeper into the competition.

It takes a lot of courage to get up in front of people and participate in this event, so all of the competitors, some of whom got more comfortable on stage as they went, deserve big marks for doing it. The cheers in the GLOBE were louder today than anything we’ve heard on BB1, a testament to the spirit and energy of the Color War Spelling Bee.

But at the end, it was White Play’s Jason Stutman going word-for-word with the Green Work tandem of Patrick and the amazing Deb Elior Rudolph.

Then came the final word:

Dramaturgical.

Patrick nailed it, sealing a third Spelling Bee title. But this one was different as it was his first team championship, winning alongside Elior from Seasons.

While the Spelling Bee is somewhat new to Color War, tonight’s Envelope event is Campfire Skits. While they’re not held in front of an actual fire like they used to be, Skits are a night for the creative writers on each team to pen an argument, in the form of a play, for why their theme is superior.

They’ve been writing and rehearsing all week in preparation for tonight’s Campfire Skits, and you can feel the mood slowly shifting.

You can almost see the end of Color War on the horizon, and that brings lots of mixed emotions. So the songs playing around camp have gotten softer and in the back of everyone’s minds, whether they know it or not, is the reality that a week from now, we’ll be getting ready for the last dance of the summer.

Tomorrow is for pudding and melon, Steeplechase and Sing Night.

Today was all about the spellers and the storytellers.