Hello from the much quieter shores of Lower Baker Pond,

On Saturday, August 10^th, Pemi’s campers scattered to the winds, returning to their homes near and far filled with tales of an incredible summer and the energy and spirit that we thrived on throughout Pemi 2024. While every Pemi summer feels, and is, special, the 2024 season had an extra bit of magic that truly made it one for the ages. Tom Reed Jr., at 77 years young and having missed only a handful of Pemi summers in his lifetime, insists that the enthusiasm and noise in the Mess Hall this year could be put up against any other Pemi summer he’s been a part of. Each and every camper, counselor, and staff member who joined us this summer deserves thanks for their role in making 2024 so special. The biggest shoutout, however, undoubtedly must go to our 15-year-olds. This year’s group of our oldest campers fully embodied what it means to, as Charlie Malcolm says, “do camp.” They led in myriad ways – vocally, quietly, by example, in discreet conversations with younger campers to correct behavior, and in announcements to the whole community about ensuring that we take care of our facilities and the folks who keep Pemi clean for us. Their names now adorn many of the plaques in the Mess Hall in recognition of so much that they accomplished, but in reality those honors barely scratch the surface of the contributions this group made to Pemi. Whenever we leave camp for a trip, we tell the boys that they need to leave wherever we’re visiting better than we found it. This summer’s 15s did that and then some, and Pemi owes them immeasurable thanks. Now we can’t wait to see what they do next summer with Pemi West and then back on staff from 2026 onwards! Read on to hear more about the final week of camp, Pemi Week, and all of the fun culminating events that helped us wrap up the 2024 season in style!

Week 6

There’s actually two weeks’ worth of material that hasn’t been covered in a newsletter yet, and while this summary will primarily focus on the final one, a few shoutouts from Week 6 feel necessary. That week was a banner one for the Pemi trip program, with a group of 15s off to climb Mount Katahdin in Maine, three different groups staying at Greenleaf Hut and traversing either north or south along the Franconia and Garfield Ridges, a Lowers overnight trip, day hikes to try and trek the final miles of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire, and three consecutive nights of Junior cabins up at Pemi Hill. The Katahdin boys – Robert Dorros, Rohin Shah, Zander Sargent, Luke Myre, Thomas Axel, Alasdair McDonough, Carter Glahn, Nick Vitale, Luke Young, and Chase Riley – made the long van ride over to Baxter State Park in Maine to summit the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, knowing that they had two days set aside to climb it just in case of inclement weather on day one. After consulting the two-day forecast, trip leaders EJ Burnett and Ben Ackerman decided that day one was the day. Neither day would have perfect weather, with clouds all around the whole week, but they felt confident that they could get up and back on Tuesday before any rain rolled in. They were correct. Starting off at sunrise, the group made the 8-mile climb to the summit at a brisk pace, and while they didn’t get the payoff of the incredible views from the top, they nonetheless recognized that they’d accomplished a serious physical challenge. That Sunday EJ and Ben helped lead our Sunday Meeting, and they talked about the lessons the boys took away from the trip, including a reinforcement of our summer theme of character by looking out for each member of the group. For the boys lucky enough to go on this trip, it was a perfect culmination of their Pemi trip careers. Thanks to the cooperation of our beautiful New Hampshire weather this summer, well over 200 boys went out on hikes, with every cabin taking at least one group trip into the mountains. The opportunity to escape into nature and experience the changed perspective that comes from looking down from a mountain summit is one of the greatest opportunities Pemi provides. We’re so glad that 2024 offered the chance for this many boys to experience that joy!

Week 6 also included two very fun and rewarding days for some of our campers: sibling ice cream visits. Given our proximity to Camps Merriwood and Lochearn plus the sizable number of Pemi boys who have sisters at these camps, it’s become a tradition to arrange an ice cream meet up with each of those girls’ camps individually so that siblings can see each other during their camp summers. It’s quickly become a highlight day for the boys who participate, and it’s so fun to see and hear the laughter and love as siblings combine their family and camp lives. We look forward to more such visits next year!

Pemi Week

Saturday, August 3^rd marked the start of Pemi Week. For the final week of camp, we host a series of different daily competitions in a cabin vs. cabin intramural format. The different age divisions compete against each other, with the winner of each division being crowned a Pemi Week Champion and receiving the coveted annual Pemi Week t-shirt. This year’s design highlighted a new addition to the Mess Hall cheer repertoire: a call out of “too low!” followed by a synchronized “raise the roof!” motion. The winning campers were thrilled to get their hands on this shirt, and chances are you already know if your son was victorious because I suspect the boys have been proudly sporting them back at home.

Before the hectic pace of Pemi Week really takes hold, however, we have a sacred Pemi tradition on Saturday morning: Brad Jones Day. To kick off the week, boys and staff alike can sleep in as late as they want on Saturday morning, with their first commitment being attendance at lunch at 12:30pm that afternoon. Many older campers take full advantage of this rare chance and go to great lengths to light- and soundproof their cabins. For the boys who wake up early, we have a special buffet breakfast with eggs cooked multiple ways, two different types of sausage, hot and cold cereal, fruit and pastries, and a nice cold glass of chocolate milk for everyone. It provides a much needed and appreciated opportunity to breathe before we dive headfirst into the sprint to the finish.

Pemi Week kicks off in earnest on Saturday afternoon with Games Day. Cabins compete in a series of individual and team contests that range from cold water musical chairs to Championship of the World Egg Toss. There’s also the cookie faceoff (first to eat an Oreo that’s been placed on his forehead, without using his hands, wins), a Skittles eating contest using chopsticks, the crab walk relay, and the sack relay. Highlights this year included Senior domination in musical chairs, with Senior 3’s Alasdair McDonough besting Senior 2’s Nick Vitale for the victory. Lake Tent’s Leo Martin was right there at the end, as were Sidney Harris from Upper 2, Michael Vitale from Lower 3, Carlos Martinez from Lower 1, Vittorio Campanile from Senior 2, and Emmitt Baggish from Upper 1. Nolan Rutledge dominated the cookie faceoff for the Upper-Juniors with one of the best performances by a camper of any age, defeating Jack Moskoff and James Wasnick from Juniors 4 and 5 respectively. Henry Nevius won for the Lower-Juniors, just ahead of Landon Dow and Charlie Foster. Other winners for their age groups were Bodie Wein, Shields Waitzkin, Trip McNulty, and Chase Riley. In the Skittles eating contest, victors were Hibbard Brown, Henry Howe, Archie Costello, Gabri Hutchinson, Wynn Wilfrid, and Dom Watson. In a rare occurrence, the egg toss victors came from a Lower-Lower cabin rather than the usual Uppers and Seniors runaway that we typically see. The dynamic duo of Hudson Eng and Connor Pike from Lower 3 managed to outlast all of the older campers plus the counselors and took home the crown by completing a near-midfield toss that sailed through the air seemingly for ages. Well done, boys!

The next day we had the triathlon in the afternoon, with the aforementioned Sunday Meeting from EJ Burnett, Ben Ackerman, Matt Cloutier and our 16s crew of Colin Ross, Peter Sharp, Wallace Snow, and Leo Ventimiglia, taking place in the morning, with an introduction of the history of Pemi trips to Maine by Kenny. They each talked about the various trips they’d just completed – Katahdin for EJ and Ben, Acadia National Park and whitewater rafting on the Kennebec River for the 16s group – and the lessons they learned along the way. It was a wonderful opportunity for younger campers to hear about some of the marquee trips they have to look forward to when they’re older, but also for the 16s and our counselors to share their wisdom and takeaways. Hearing Leo talk about a pre-sunrise hike the 16s group took to the top of Mt. Sargent in Acadia had everyone in the room wishing they could have been a part of that headlamp-led trek. His description of then going back down the same route and seeing in daylight what they’d just recently walked through in darkness was a beautiful image and demonstrated real appreciation for such a special moment.

The Pemi Week triathlon is one of the most popular events, with boys of all swimming and running abilities opting to try it out, some with an eye towards winning and others with an eye towards notching a real athletic accomplishment in a challenging race. Unlike a traditional triathlon, ours includes swimming, running, and then canoeing. The first two boys from each cabin to arrive back at the boats jump into their cabin’s canoe, and the first pair back on shore with their canoe beached and life jackets off earns the cabin victory. We had a few thrilling races, but none was closer than the Upper-Lowers battle between Lowers 6 and 7. Lower 7’s Henry Vanderzee won the individual portion of the race and was joined in the canoe by Nicholas Kusik. Meanwhile, Lower 6’s Shields Waitzkin came in third individually and was quickly joined in the canoe by Luka Strugar. As they sprinted towards Senior Beach it was truly neck and neck. All four boys jumped out of their boats nearly in unison, and it came down to a race of who could get their lifejackets off faster. With some enthusiastic but effective assistance from Luka, Shields got his off, tossed it into the boat, and Lower 6 eked out the win! What made this race special, however, was not actually the incredibly tight finish. It was the fact that mere seconds after losing and watching the other boat celebrate with their cabin, Henry walked over to Luka and gave him a massive congratulatory hug along with praise for a job well done. It was competition and sportsmanship at its finest, demonstrating exactly what Pemi Week is all about! Other individual divisional triathlon winners were Andrew Ramich, Henry Howe, Julian Blaustein, Emmitt Baggish, and Johnny Thibault, all of whom turned in incredibly speedy performances. Some, like Julian and Johnny, combined lightning fast speed in the water and on land for near wire-to-wire victories while others, like Andrew and Emmitt reeled in the faster swimmers in their age groups with dizzyingly quick running performances.

The rest of the spotlight Pemi Week events included Woods Dudes’ Day, Pentathlon, and Swimming Championships. While the star-studded performances for each of those days are equally worthy of description, time and space constraints dictate that I steer you towards Bean Soup this winter to learn more about the winners there. Similarly, you can scour your Bean Soup copy to learn about archery, sailing, and cabin soccer victories. Congratulations are due here, however, to the overall Pemi Week winners: Junior 3, Junior 4, Lower 3, Lower 7, Upper 1, and Senior 2! Well done to all!

Pemi Week, of course, is about much more than just competition. It’s about celebrating all that we’ve done as a community this summer and seeing boys thrive across the full range of our program. In fact several of the highlights from the week have absolutely nothing to do with the week’s competitions. Chief among these is our annual dramatic production, which this year was A Midsummer Camp’s Dream. Directed by Patty Frank, with technical direction and assistance from Dan Fulham and Dave Frank, this show had the audience in stitches. Rather than review it myself, however, I’ll include here an abridgement of Pemi theater critic Clive Bean’s 5-star review of the show:

A truly inventive mash-up of the Shakespeare play and a typical Camp Pemi Board of Directors meeting… Driving the action was clearly Tavi Machin Kairuz as Hippolyta, chief squeeze of the formerly wealthy Duke Theseus, played by Luke Gonzalez… Her hyper-materialistic plans involved Theseus selling either Camp Pemi or Camp Merriwood to bulldoze for a building site, the surviving camp to be determined by the very same thing that settles American politics these days: a talent show. Thrown into the mix was a confusing four-way love fest, involving Pemi boys Lysander (Danny Follansbee) and Demetrius (Nathan Gonzalez) and Merriwood girls Hermia (Michaella Frank) and Helena (Ellie Madigan)… All four excelled as love-sick teens, and they happily ended up with the partners they were meant for….

Kudos for awful drama go to Theseus’s wandering wrecking crew of Evan Anderson, Gonzo (in his second of two parts), Ezra Otubusin-Reese, Megan (“I’m a bush, not a tree!”) Spindler, Barrett Bachner, and Wills Waitzkin. Originally hired to tear down the losing camp, they were enlisted into Pemi’s talent show and performed their play-within-the-play with all the care and professionalism of a Boeing assembly line. Wills, incidentally, doubled as butler to Oberon, King of the Fairies (played by Brian Lorig), who seemed to be having trouble with his own chief squeeze, Queen Titania… Owen Gagnon (playing Titania) very selfishly stole the show with his nuanced performance as a six-foot-four floozie with a taste for reverse centaurs… The reason she fell for Evan had something to do with two dudes called Puck (well played by Cairo Clapper) and Peaseblossom (Eli Brennan). All the show’s actors were brilliant—although we have to say that they were also, well, weird! Thank you to Nelson Snyder and Anna Parsons for playing two Pemi and Merriwood counselors as reasonably normal people….

Additional shout outs to Stage Manager Finn Stephan, along with Stage Crew and Act 5 campers Adler Howe, Henry Howe, George Kingdon, Sebbie Liebel, Charlie Moskoff, Winston Moore, Oliver Nevius, Brecken Putzel, and Michael Vitale.

As you can gather from that review, this clever and charming play fits perfectly into the Pemi drama ethos, keeping the audience alert for witty one-liners and providing entertainment for viewers of all ages. Be sure to read the full review in Bean Soup this winter. Thank you and bravo to cast and crew!  

Pemi’s artistic talent was also on display in our end-of-summer art show in the library. Work that boys (and some counselors) had completed in activities and during free time all summer was laid out by our head of art Robin Asbury for all to admire. It’s hard to find the words to do justice to the incredible talent, creativity, and dedication that went into making so many pieces across such a wide range of projects. You’ll need to look through the photos to fully appreciate how impressive this collection was, and trust me, it will be well worth your time to do so if you haven’t yet!

Final Banquet, Bean Soup, and Campfire

A trio of celebratory events help us wrap up the week on Thursday and Friday evenings: Final Banquet, the final Bean Soup, and the final campfire. All three offer distinct opportunities to recognize individual and group embodiments of the Pemi spirit generally and the Pemi 2024 spirit specifically. If you’ve made it this far, stay with me a touch longer to read about these fantastic capstones to a fantastic summer.

It would be foolish to begin describing Final Banquet anywhere else than with our kitchen team and their heroic efforts to put together this delicious feast. Tom, Mike, Andrew, Paul, Nancy, Sandra, Valeria, Mauricio, Brandon, Estefany, Alessandra, Danny and Aldo, thank you! They worked tirelessly all summer to provide the best food Pemi has seen in years, and I suspect it’s no accident that a summer of being fed so well coincided with a summer of such special energy. They showcased their abilities once again during the Final Banquet, treating us to a meal that any five-star restaurant would be proud to have served.

After wrapping up with some fresh-baked pie, we turn our focus to our annual awards ceremony. At lunch on the day prior, we gave out a staggering number of patches for Polar Bear, Bean Soup authorship, distance swims, program-area accomplishments, and more. It was remarkable to see just how many accomplishments our boys had this summer. While the lunchtime awards ceremony largely revolved around achievement of specific goals or benchmarks, the Final Banquet awards are primarily for all-around excellence in a given program area or aspect of camp life. With recognition coming from the arts, athletics, nature, trips, and Pemi as a whole, these awards celebrate boys who have gone above and beyond during their time at Pemi. To see the full list, I’ll once again direct you to Bean Soup, but a few stand out as worthy of specific mention here.

While not an “award” per se, this first one certainly deserve a moment of your time: We had the deep privilege of celebrating Charlie Malcolm’s 40th Pemi summer at this Banquet. Tom Reed Jr. spoke beautifully about Charlie’s contributions to Pemi over the decades. Then Charlie, as only he can do, followed that up with a classic Malcolm pep talk. Pemi is so lucky to have benefited from Charlie’s leadership and character these many years, and here’s to more to come!

Music holds a special power at Pemi. Between Mess Hall singing, The Campfire Song, and our daily bugle tunes, music can be found everywhere at camp, and it binds us together in undefinable yet powerful ways. As such, it was especially fun to recognize this year’s winner of the Doc Reed’s Musician Trophy, Manfred Creane.  The award’s inscription states “In memory of Doc Reed is inscribed hereon each year the name of the camper who has contributed most to the music at Pemi.” If you’ve read these newsletters closely this summer, you’re already familiar with our winner’s name, as he’s earned numerous mentions here for the ways his performances have entranced, wowed, and bonded us as a community.

Way back at the start of this missive, I mentioned how strong our 15-year-olds have been this summer, and it’s therefore unsurprising that their names now adorn several of these major awards. The Fred Seebeck Competitive Swimming Trophy went to 15-year-old Rohin Shah, the Mac Dunlop Tennis Award to Robert Dorros, the Pemigewassett Soccer Trophy to Alex Baron and Emmitt Baggish (Alex’s 13-year-old co-winner), and Johnnie’s Plaque for Dramatics to 15-year-old Luke Gonzalez and co-winner 12-year-old Finn Stephan. We also had two 15s split the Counselors Athletic Trophy, given “For fine sportsmanship and all-around athletic proficiency and interest.” The winners this year were Thomas Axel and Luke Myre, two of the strongest athletes and best competitors we’ve seen recently at Pemi.

The penultimate pair of awards are given out to winners in each division for their all-around contributions to Pemi during the summer. The Achievement Trophy goes to the boy in each division, “who has made the greatest all-around achievement, measured by the dual consideration of distance gained and goal achieved.” This year’s winners were Russell Howland, Mounir Abdelkarim, Sidney Harris, and Johnny Thibault. The Divisional Citizenship Trophy is awarded, “For the best all-around citizen in each division whose generous and unselfish spirit gives success, happiness, and self-esteem to others.” Our winners in 2024 were Finn Shapiro, Kaz Sulski, Alex Fernandez, Tom Mele, and Will Sandor.

The last award given out at Final Banquet is the Founders Citizenship Trophy. As the inscription states, “In memory of Doc Gar, Win, and Reed, on this trophy is inscribed each year the name of him who is considered to have contributed most to camp beyond the line of duty.” Our winner capped off a stellar eight-year camper career by having a fantastic 15s summer, leading by example, going out of his way to talk to and interact with younger campers, and doing all that he did with unwavering positivity and kindness. Congratulations and thanks to Luke Gonzalez!

After the extensive celebrations on Thursday night, we had another round of final events on Friday with Bean Soup and campfire. At the final Bean Soup, the editors gave out a number of additional awards, taking the opportunity to recognize people for their genuine accomplishments rather than the usual “of-the-week” awards that recognize mistakes and missteps. While most of these go to staff, the editors also selected a Camper of the Year, whose outstanding 15s summer saw him leading the Senior Division, participating all around camp, and demonstrating his love for Pemi through his seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy and enthusiasm. The 2024 Camper of the Year went to Carter Glahn.

Immediately after Bean Soup, we awarded our one major staff award that gets voted on by the full staff. The Joe Campbell Award, named after a legendary Pemi counselor from the 40s and 50s who also became a staple of Pemi reunions until his passing, goes to the counselor who best embodies Joe’s qualities of “integrity, generosity, happiness, enthusiasm, modesty, and an unsurpassed ability to give laughter to all who knew him.” That inscription speaks for itself. The 2024 winner was our Junior Camp division head and one of our Bean Soup editors: Ali Sheikh.

The final campfire of 2024 was a bittersweet affair filled with outstanding performances from a wide range of people. Our Health Center staff sang a beautiful rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow that encapsulated just how connected and caring a group they’d been throughout this summer. A camper/16s ensemble of Wallace Snow, Connor Smillie, Manfred Creane, Eli Enders, Sebastian Leibel, Leo Ventimiglia, and Colin Ross, joined by head of music Evan Anderson on the cello, performed an improv session on a number of instruments that seemed designed to make us all jealous of the prolific musical talent on stage – wow! Our 15s also rose as a group and performed Frank Sinatra’s My Way, showing us once again how close they are as an age group, how much they enjoy each other’s company, and how much they love Pemi. It was a beautiful and memorable moment that those guys will carry with them for life. As we always do, we closed with The Campfire Song, and as it always does, it hit home just a bit differently on that final night. With arms locked around each other and tears starting to flow down many a cheek, we once more sang out the song that best captures the spirit, bonds, and love that flow richly through the Pemi family. It was the perfect final touch on a remarkable summer.

It’s always tough to try and put into words just what a Pemi summer has felt like, how it’s impacted boys and staff alike, and how we’ve all grown into better versions of ourselves from our time together. Kenny, however, did quite the job of attempting this unattainable feat on Saturday morning as he sent the Pemi boys back out into the world. He charged us each to think about how this community made us a little bit kinder, a little bit more caring, and a little bit better than we’d been previously, and to then carry forth those improvements into our lives back home. It was a powerful and important reminder of how the Pemi spirit of kindness, caring for each other and the world, and being a person of strong character at all times can truly help not just those of us lucky enough to have spent the summer here, but innumerable people back out in the rest of the world. Well-deserved plaudits have been given throughout this newsletter, and another one is certainly due to Kenny, not just for that message, but for the awe-inspiring way in which he guided this community and allowed us all to thrive in and benefit from it.

With that, it’s time to put a close on Pemi’s 117^th summer. To the alums out there who have been reading these updates and wishing they were back on Lower Baker’s shores, thank you for your continued support of and love for Pemi. To the families who entrusted us with the care of their boys, please know that we are forever and immeasurably grateful for your trust and belief in us. Pemi thrives because of your continued partnership with us during the summer and throughout the year. To the Pemi staff, thank you all for the tireless dedication and effort that you put in on behalf of Pemi’s campers in order to provide them with the best summer of their lives. It’s a fun and rewarding, yet also exhausting job, and this year’s staff did it as well as any ever has. Finally, we had 253 boys join us at Pemi this summer, and each and every one of them has our deepest thanks and appreciation for the role they played in making this such an amazing experience. We hope to see all of them back again as campers, counselors, and alumni. Thank you, boys!

Here’s to Pemi 2024, and wishing you all good luck, long life, and joy!

Pat Clare