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Sequoyah Anthem
Latest News
"It's a beautiful day at Sequoyah!"
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Fall 2010 Reunion! Please save the
dates of Saturday, September 25th The owners of the Camp Sequoyah property have invited us to join them for the weekend and take some time to chill, enjoy the mountains, relive some memories, tell a few stories, do a little work (optional only), and smell the Sequoyah air! Just like the recent Canoe Camp gathering, these rare weekends are such great fun. We have no scheduled agenda although we would like for you to bring your memorabilia and set it up in the dining hall. Take time to walk around and trace some old footsteps. The owners now live in the beautifully renovated Hoffman Cabin (library), so I'm sure home tours can be arranged for us to see the changes. We'll see what's in store for the future. There are three suggested but optional work projects we can help with, and a little sweat equity would be very helpful for these very meaningful parts of camp so bring some gloves and appropriate tools if you wish:
If you arrive Friday, there are motels in Asheville on Merrimon Avenue and also some B&B in Weaverville. Come on up Saturday morning. Bring your breakfast or eat before you come. Some of you, I'm sure, will want to have your Bulls eye toast cooked over a campfire...so do it! Once you are at camp, you'll need to sign a release form for insurance purposes, but we've done that before. Bring your own food for lunch and dinner each day and we can eat on the lawn or in the dining hall after we sing the Sequoyah Grace. If we can have a Port-O-Potty delivered, it will be OK to camp on the athletic field overnight Saturday if you want to — just let me know. We'll call it a Port-O-Half. Even if you don't want to camp out, we still will need the Half, so a small donation may be in order when you get there. We all need to say goodbye by 4pm on Sunday. There may be more information as the date nears, so stay tuned. Please RSVP to me (jmm8 at comcast dot net) if you can come so we will know how to plan further. Just tell me how many you are bringing...and we really should resurrect and keep the Old Sequoyan Club an active and closely knit group for as long as we can. Please pass this announcement on to any old Sequoyan with whom you keep in contact. Our thanks to the hosts for this great gesture and for accommodating us: September 25th and 26th, 2010. — Mike Miller |
1946
A very good year
Sequoyah Reunion at Canoe Camp!
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Saturday, June 26, 2010 The owner of the Camp Sequoyah Canoe Camp site on Lake Nanathala, Emory Crawford, would like to host a day on the lake for all Sequoyans. Also sponsoring the event will be the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. Although a road now provides land access to Canoe Camp, you are still welcome to arrive, as we did as campers, via water. Hours for the event are 11am to 3pm, to allow for driving in and out. However, you are welcome to stay longer. Here's how LTLT's Kate Parkerson describes the day:
Further details will be posted. Meanwhile, RSVPs should go to Kate Parkerson via email, kparkerson at ltlt dot org, or by phone, at 828-524-2711, ext. 203. The lake is as beautiful and serene as ever. Whether or not you went to Canoe Camp, take this opportunity to revisit this remarkable place. |
NEW AND IMPROVED!
Mike Miller's collection of photos from the late 60s and early 70s
Captions will be added soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the evocative images by themselves.
Go to Mike's Page and click the links.
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Longnecker's Lumps Twenty
years ago I was on the Appalachian Trail, and a girl was
making breakfast. She made biscuits and called them
Longnecker's Lumps. I asked her where she got the
recipe and why they were called that. She got it
from a friend and said they were made by a guy named
Steve Longnecker, but that it probably wasn't his real
name. |
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Star Watch Sequoyans of a certain age were privileged to attend camp at the dawn of the space age. A group of Nature Lore campers met Michael "Uncle Mike" Hoffman after taps, when the moon was low and the stars stood out. We had our flashlights and Field Guides, but tonight we needed no guide, just good eyesight, for Echo, a 100 foot silver balloon satellite sent into low earth orbit, was due to pass overhead. And then it appeared, a star among the stars, moving silently across the sky, the first man-made object in space we had ever seen. Today, Echo has been replaced in orbit by the Hubble Space Telescope, a platform for viewing the farthest reaches of space and the earliest reaches of time itself. In a deep field of myriad Milky Ways, Hubble recently detected the earliest and most distant galaxies. |
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Canoe Camp Saved! On the heels of the good news about the sale of the Main Camp property to dedicated preservationists, comes more good news. Emory Crawford, owner of Sequoyah's Canoe Camp site on Lake Aquone, aka Nantahala Lake, has obtained a conservation easement, with The Land Trust for the Little Tennessee. |
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Sequoyah property sold As you may have heard, the Sequoyah property has been sold. Unfortunately, the plan of the previous owners, to build a new camp, was unrealized. The good news is that the new owners are a private party and dedicated preservationists. They have also expressed kind feelings towards Sequoyans and will work with us in their preservation efforts. The details have yet to be worked out, but as official news is released, you will see it here. |
Wilby Coleman has contributed a wonderful memoir of his time at Sequoyah, 1943-1945.
New, from the
Council Ring
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Stouthearted Men is a venerable Sequoyah anthem. For the stouthearted man, "there's nothing in the world can halt or mar a plan." This precept is put to the ultimate test, in David Grann's true tale of the search for |
Instant classic . . .

Click on the book
to go to the Website.
They're promoting the book for summer camps,
as well as back yards . . .
Update from Pop!
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There have been a number of enquiries about how Sequoyah's living legend James "Pop" Hollandsworth has been faring. Here's an update: Pop spent his 93rd birthday in Quebec City, Canada, at the 2008 congress of the International Camping Fellowship, where he received an award, stating: "Your contributions have enriched the International Camping Fellowship and advanced the cause of camping across the world". Pop said, "I guess that suggests that I'm still active and involved...with some mobility help on a 'flame red' four-wheel walker." As of November 19, Pop and his wife Marjie had just returned from a two-week stay in their mountain home near Black Mountain, "about 15 mile due south across the Craggy Range from Sequoyah." |
New, from the
Council Ring
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Now that we've had a chance to digest Thanksgiving and the aftermath, here's Sarah Vowell, the delightful raconteur who brought us her account of her travels along the Trail of Tears, talking about her book, Wordy Shipmates, about the Pilgrim Fathers. |
"Membership has its rewards."

Every kid's big brother, he saw camping as part of the solution.
Paul Newman
1925 - 2008

(Click photo
for a video treat.)
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The Era of the Hero
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A Death in the Forest?
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Sequoyah in the 1970s

"The Screaming Wheels"
(Impersonating Sha Na Na's "Bowzer")
Tuscaroras, 1974
Walt Kuentzel has updated his
Sequoyah Website
with hundreds of new photos and a cool new look.
Mike
Miller gives us a look
inside the workings of a summer camp.
and
Sequoyah as a Model for Today's Summer Camp
by Jon Cooner
Hans Clausen's
photo memoir,
with rare shots of Junior Camp
by Jim Bonds
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Letter from North Carolina
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Bill Johnson
1928-2007
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Lest there be any doubt about the continuing
relevance of the
Sequoyan Frank Tindall's Camp Falling
Creek |
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"The Coming American"
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From a recent message from an old Sequoyan . . . I was so pleased and pleasantly surprised to find the Sequoyah web site today. Sequoyah was such a unique and special place, the most fantastic setting, and the finest staff and campers there could have been. Thank you so much for your efforts on behalf of all of us who were touched by this special place. I remember the camp nurse saying to me that "Our trails will cross again", and with this web site, that has come true. Revere "Brud" Harbourt, 65, 67 |
| One circumstance that helped our
character development: we were needed. I often think today
of what an impact could be made if children believed they
were contributing to a family's essential survival
and happiness. In the transformation from a rural to an
urban society, children are—though they might not
agree—robbed of the opportunity to do genuinely responsible
work. — Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Nature Alert!
Are cell phones wiping out our bees?
New feature
Add a photo to your guestbook entry!
When you
sign the guestbook, send
a tribal or cabin photo, or just you at Sequoyah,
along with your
info,
and we'll make it a part of your entry.
If you've slready signed the guestbook, send a favorite photo, and we'll add
it to your entry.
Don't worry about the condition. We'll fix it.
Sample
In the Council Ring
AWOL
It's about
service
A moving Guestbook comment
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Hello Sequoyans! I found the site a while back when I met David Brown on one of the tours I operate. Since Sequoyah, I have not stopped paddling. I have made my living and supported my family doing what I love, and I owe that to Sequoyah. If it were still open, I have no doubt that I would still be there and in many ways I still am. Seqouyah's influence has been very meaningful to me. My kids are eager to hear stories as we look at this website together. I have had the good fortune to run into old Sequoyans. Their memories are usually as fond as mine. I have dreamed of creating a Seqouyah-type experience here in Costa Rica where I live. On numerous occasions as I paddled Smokey Mountain streams I made the opportunity to walk through camp. To see my name still on the cabin plaques—to remember mud soccer, tying the bowline under the waterfall, Randolfs Route, and the people who influenced me—was a great thrill. I owe my first paid paddling job to being on a list of honor campers from Sequoyah that was picked up after the closing. I only hope I can create the experience I had at Sequoyah for my kids. Thanks for the site, a real treasure. Neil Kahn, '74-76 |
Kendall Bryan's
Sequoyah campers, singing Sequoyah favorites,
From the original vinyl LPs recorded in 1961
Remember the Star Watch?
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Halley's Comet
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Updated!
Global Warming
Pop's Council Ring Photos
Rare
photos from the 40s!
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George Harrell, III, Sequoyah camper, Tsali boy, Pirate, Counselor, has a splendid collection of photos and memorabilia, which he is sharing with us. |
In and Around Sequoyah
Walton Conway's Tribute to Sequoyah

A Summer Afternoon
Beneath the Spreading Oak
Why aren't you there?
No, you're not too busy!
Take a
short walk around Sequoyah Main Camp, as it was during its active years
and as it is today.

The light ahead takes you to Sequoyah
(Find the link!)
. . . then, browse the picture archives.
Thanks to Walt Kuentzel's Website we have an extensive archive from the Capps years, 1971-1978, as well as a splendid collection of Sequoyah brochures and pamphlets.
We should like to build a comprehensive album of photos and printed matter, going all the way back to the beginning. Do you have any of your camp pix? Please contact Jack Rice.
More archives below.
Visiting Sequoyah
The
Sequoyah property is now in good hands.
The new owners are dedicated preservationists.
Please bear in mind that although the owners
are cordial and aware of our connection to Sequoyah,
the property is strictly private, and access is by permission only.
The Great Ones

(Photo courtesy Junior Taylor)
An Archive of Sequoyah Philosophy
The Fourth Dimension in Camping
26 January 2006
Commemorating Chief

From his tiny hut beside the Nature Cabin, Michael "Uncle Mike" Hoffman, with his white mane and weathered countenance, presided. Uncle Mike had his own flagpole, flying the colors of the United Nations, which we still revered in those days, to remind us that we are stewards not only of our little corner of paradise but of the whole world. In matters celestial and terrestrial, Uncle Mike was Sequoyah's go-to guy. Each of those who knew him has his own fond memory of Uncle Mike. For those who came after, perhaps the best way of making the acquaintance of a Sequoyah legend and his love of nature is through these recent news items, a tribute we hope Uncle Mike would find fitting. Are cell phones wiping out our bees? Restoring the American Chestnut
Proof that nature still has the upper
hand . . . |
Paul Neal

Mike Miller
Photo Archives
The Capps Years
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Photo Survey of Main Camp 2002
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Barry Durand's
Winter at Sequoyah
Ed Bumann's
Tsali, the
Beginnings
Ben Moore's
Tsali at Canoe
Camp
David Glasgow's
Around Sequoyah, Summer
2002
Plus, more of David's photos at Snapfish.com (registration required)
April 2002 photo survey
Photos from the Summer 2002 get-together
The Thunderbird
"I am a Spirit"
Visit Eustace Conway's Turtle Island Preserve