Sunsetting Camp Rocky Point

June 01, 2023

In April, Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas bid farewell to a dear council campsite as we made a final collection of memories at Camp Rocky Point in Denison. Campers at its Lake Texoma shores from the past six decades gathered to sunset the property as they made new friends and kept the old. After the event wrapped up, our own Sally Dover encapsulated the experience in a touching and heartfelt way we couldn’t have expressed any better:

A letter to camp

Dear Camp Rocky Point,

On April 29, I had the privilege of paying homage to a beautiful love affair between generations of Girl Scouts and their beloved camp. I was humbled to bear witness to such an intimate farewell benediction for a place and its people whom I came to know only in recent years. You welcomed your former campers, CITs, counselors, directors, volunteers, and board members from all over Texas and far beyond. Everyone said the same thing about you: I had to be here. I couldn’t miss this last time with the place that has given me so much. A glorious sunset and a bright half-moon and beautiful stars and serenading birds all came to pay their respects to you.

Your people came with their mothers, with their granddaughters, with their friends and former colleagues. They came from the 60s and 70s and 80s and 90s, from the 2000s and the 20teens. They came bearing their walkers and canes, their swaps, and their vintage photographs of your glory days. They came with love in their hearts, with songs on their lips, with hugs on the tips of their fingers. They came with laughter and grief and thanksgiving for one another and for you. Many people have heard me say: camp is a gift that lasts an entire life. Your people came with gratitude running over for this very thing and they stood around your blazing campfire and sang your songs and told your stories and listened to one another share the very best that life has to offer:

They said one summer I went to the first session and wrote home to ask my mom to stay the next session, and then I did the same thing again the next session, and then I did the same thing all summer. I spent the entire summer here. It was the best.

They said camp was the first time I met someone who wasn’t white – and I got to share a tent with her and become her friend and we wrote letters to each other for twenty years and I still have things she gave me.

They said camp taught me all of the things I needed to learn – how to do stuff and make stuff and be something. Camp made me a leader.

They told stories about your raccoons – lots of raccoons, lots of stories. Stories about your boats. Stories about Betty and Donna.

They said I got on a plane for the first time in my entire life and it was to go to another continent to a place called Texas to work here at summer camp, and 8 years later I am still a Texan.

They said I was so terrified of the water and of boats, and my counselor – that person sitting right over there – helped me overcome my fear, and I am better because of it.

They said I was at a college fair at my high school decades ago and I went up to the table for a women’s school and in talking to them I said: these women are like the women at Camp Rocky Point, and I am going to that school because I want to be like those women, and I did go to Wellesley, and I have become like those women who were my idols here when I was a camper.

They said Camp Rocky Point saved my life – not just once, but many times over. I lived because I needed to come back here to camp. I lived because of this, and I’m thankful.

They said hey you were my counselor! And you were my camper! They said I remember you.

Betty said to someone, you know you wanted to go home when you were a camper – I had to talk you into staying, to get you to finish CIT. And then you were a counselor and ran the waterfront, and now look at you. She said to Betty: yeah, I needed you so much.

Just like me, they said Betty is my hero. I want to be like Betty when I grow up. And for every person who was present at camp that day, there are hundreds more of your people scattered all of the world, being the people that you and Betty made them.

They said camp is my courage and my confidence and my character. I make the world a better place because of camp.

They said camp is my home.

Thank you, Camp Rocky Point, for holding the dreams and the hearts and the magic of Girl Scouts for 71 years. Thank goodness love lasts forever.

You’re best good people sent you out in style. Thank you to Betty, Cynthia, Donna, Hilary J, fellow Bridges people Hank and Jesse, and all of the volunteers for sharing a beautiful tribute to a beautiful place – and to Ashley O, Andrew, and Marcomm for supporting the farewell event in various capacities, and to Ashley Crowe and Debbie for attending.

The deepest thanks of all to Betty and all of the people who came before to make Rocky Point what it has been.

Rocky Point, this isn’t the end. On behalf of Camps Bette Perot, Gambill, K, and Whispering Cedars and all our day and twilight camps, where we’re carrying forward the great Girl Scout camp torch. Because the 2,400 girls, volunteers, and staff who are coming to our camps this summer are going to be sitting around a crackly campfire 50 years from now saying: camp gave me community, camp gave me a voice, camp gave me guts, camp gave me hope, camp gave me dreams, camp gave me life.

Camp Rocky Point, we wish you the best in the next chapter of your life. Thank you for serving us so faithfully. May we be all that you intended us to be.

Love,
Sally

Sally Dover,
GSNETX Director of Outdoor Leadership