This history was written by Girault M. Jones, Sewanee, TN in February 1989.

Camp Hardtner, the conference center for the Episcopal Church in Louisiana, welcomed its first campers in the summer of 1948. I suspect that when Bishop Henton asked me to prepare this brief history he assumed that I would begin with those frantic weeks of final preparation leading up to that first session.

I find that I cannot start there. to do so would be to ignore the vision and the persistent work of scores of people who, over some twenty-five years, had made that opening possible. If for no other reason I must for their sake attempt to tell the whole story.

The "youth movement" in the Christian Church is a relatively recent phenomenon. Aside from the so-called Children's Crusade in the thirteenth century, children are generally ignored in Church history. it was not until around 1780 that what we call the Sunday School was invented. Even then, it was not the deliberate planning of Church leaders but almost accidental? Robert Raikes, living in Gloucester, England, saw the children of working class people wandering idly on the streets on Sunday. Knowing that there was no week-day school for them, he started classes on Sunday afternoons. Along with reading, writing, and arithmetic, he insisted on a class in Holy Scripture. The idea caught on and other such schools were started. Since most of them met on Church grounds, and since Bible was a required subject, the name "Sunday School" was born.

Not only were these schools not sponsored by the Church, in many instances they were strongly opposed by those in authority. The elite felt that too much learning would lead the working class to forget its place, diminish the pool of unskilled labor, and somehow desecrate church precincts. The education of children was strictly a family matter and should be confined to the home. This attitude was widely held into the late 1700's. Except for the occasional catechizing of children at evensong as a check on parental teaching, the Church assumed no responsibility for the education of children as children.

It must be confessed that such an attitude was slow in dying. In my own childhood Sunday Schools were not seen as a vital part of the parish program. A few dear souls would teach the catechism and tell Bible stories, but that was all. There were no kindergartens or primary departments, no lessons series, no printed leaflets, no thought of teacher training, no idea of "youth groups." Many parishes saw the Sunday School as a loose appendage. I have known vestries refuse to include any Church School expense in the parish budget, arguing that if such an enterprise were undertaken it should pay its own way.

This built-in resistance did not begin to change until the turn of the century. A few people saw that the home training once so dependable was breaking down. As secular education was more and more left to the public schools, systematic religious training at home declined. Normal schools were created to train public school teachers, and Sunday School teaching began to suffer by comparison. The age-old catechetical method -- learning by rote -- grew less attractive, and since the old custom of family and servants joining in family prayers faded, religious instruction at home suffered the same fate. The Church began to realize that what the home was failing to do would have to be done by the local parish. All over the country, scattered attempts to initiate some kind of Church School teacher training began to arise.

One of the first of those training projects was the Sewanee Summer Training School. Since that program played a vital part in the youth movement in Louisiana, the story of its origin deserves to be recorded here.

In 1910, the Rev. mercer Logan, Rector of St. Ann's Church in Nashville, decided that a summer training school for lay Church workers, particularly teachers, was needed. He enlisted the help of the Very Rev. james Craik Morris, Dean of St. Mary's in Memphis, to initiate such a conference at Sewanee. Since Dean Morris was later to be the Bishop of Louisiana, it is not unfair to say that Louisiana was in on the project from the beginning. Some twenty-five people were willing to come to Sewanee and pay one dollar a day for room and board that first time. Similar conferences in the next few years showed steady growth, and while registration lists no longer exist, it is assumed that most of these conferees were Tennesseans.

At this point, I must pause to note that at the General Convention in 1910, the Episcopal Church initiated the provincial system. Unlike elsewhere in the Anglican Communion, where a Province designated a national church, we used the name to identify a geographical division of the Church in this country. The South was called Province IV.

When these proposed changes were ratified at the 1913 General Convention, the provinces were free to proceed with their organization. The Primary Synod of the Fourth Province was held at Trinity Church in New Orleans, another instance of Louisiana's involvement during those early years. it was at the Synod that the Fourth Province was officially named "The Province of Sewanee." And it was then that a provincial board of education was created.

Following the early start of the Sewanee Summer Training School, the Rev. Dr. Logan had moved to Charleston, SC. There his immediate neighbor was the Rev. Homer Starr, also a prime mover in Christian Education and a loyal supporter of Sewanee. It was the leadership of these two men, active in the Sewanee Summer School, that made Christian Education the first concern of that primary synod. By the time the Synod met in New Orleans in 1914, the Summer School had held three successful sessions; it had captured the attention of people all over the south. Without hesitation, the Summer School became the joint undertaking of the Provincial Board of Religious Education and the University of the South.

By using the unoccupied facilities of the University, the Provincial Department established a reputable training center for lay workers. A capable faculty offered courses in theology, Church history, liturgics, Bible and several classes in teacher training. Credits were given for satisfactory work, and when three or four years of required courses had been taken, the "graduates" were given teacher certificates. it was a proud parish when such a framed certificated grace the wall of some classroom. it is not too much to claim that this summer project was one of the first systematic attempts in the the American Church to raise the level of religious instruction of our youth.

it must be remembered that in those years there were no diocesan summer camps, no organized parish "youth groups", and in a majority of Episcopal congregations no graded Sunday Schools nor even parish house designed for educational purposes. The Sewanee Summer School, through its adult and later its youth divisions, made all these needs come alive.

One of the leaders in this up-grading was another Louisianan. The Rev. Gardiner Leigh Tucker was rector of St. Matthew's, Houma, from 1903 until 1938. Holding three degrees from the University of the South, he devoted his life to religious education. he was not only the leader in his own diocese but he was promptly named secretary for the Fourth Province. he had as much to do with the growth and the perpetuation of the Summer Training School as anyone. He shared the dreams of Dr. Logan, and after the founder's death, Dr. Tucker became the personification of that program.

Gardiner l. Tucker did not look like a youth leader. He was not the gleeful enthusiast. When relaxed, his face was almost dour. No lights lit up when he smiled, and he could be abrupt in his impatience. Yet he was himself responsible for the amazing "spirit" of the Summer Conference. It was the contagion of that spirit which advertised Sewanee, which enabled each annual conference to begin like a family reunion where homecoming was a joy. Long before there was any talk about "group dynamics", he knew how to unite strangers. Here are two examples of his tactics:

His first step was to teach the newly assembled conferees "The Sewanee Handclap." [One-two-three-four, one-two, one-two, one-two-three-four, one-two, one-two. One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. ONE!] By the end of the first evening everyone had it down pat, and woe to the one who was out of step on that final clap! It was the most innocent of maneuvers, but it involved even the most shy, and by the end of the evening, he had built a cooperative community.

His other tactic was even more telling. During dinner, night after night, he would walk the aisle singing a couplet of his own making and aimed directly at prominent members of the conference. he began with the bigwigs and after a week he would be singling out youngsters in the crowd. Each rhyming couplet carried a jibe, or a twist, and after each everyone joined in a rip-roaring chorus, "Oh-----! The goats are every where---! You can tell them by their appetites and feeble-minded stare---!" This simple exercise served two purposes. it stimulated hilarious unanimity. And it was a great leveling tool, for it lowered the most reserved of dignitaries, and it lifted the spirits of the loner who lacked recognition. I suspect those Summer school meals did much to teach the youth of the south that Christian fellowship can be fun.

It was out of this kind of summer fellowship that the youth movement came. Young people were outgrowing the traditional Sunday school, and there was nothing to which they could turn. Dr. Tucker saw the need to enfranchise older teenagers, to give them corporate identity in their Church membership. He and others like him were responsible for the organization of youth groups in parishes.

There had existed for some time a title called "The Church School League". It did not represent an organization, but the umbrella under which extra curricular Church school activities had been grouped-- largely for purpose of reporting. These included the Christmas Mission Boxes, the Lenten Mite Boxes, the Birthday Thank Offering, even the Little Helpers. None of them referred to a self-organized, self-run group of youth. It was strictly a paper title. But under the leadership of Dr. Tucker and others. the Young People's Service League was born. it appealed to older teenagers; it its own rules, elected its own officers, conducted its own meetings. Counselors were on hand as advisers, but it was truly a youth organization. Between 1910 and about 1920, this organization rose from parish to diocesan to provincial status. No one can estimate how much of the impetus came from the Sewanee summer Training School.

In 1922, a young Canadian priest came to New Orleans to be the Curate for St. Paul's Church. The Rev. Joseph S. Ditchburn had been in the Canadian army. In his quiet and gentle way, he demonstrated a remarkable ability to lead young people. I cannot be certain that he organized the youth of St. Paul's; there is evidence that some of them had already attended the Sewanee sessions, and there may have been some organization locally. But it is clear that with his arrival, many things began to happen. And it was that summer, in 1922, that Louisiana's first youth camp was held under Mr. Ditchburn's leadership.

Kingsley House, a settlement house in New Orleans working with underprivileged children, owned a place near Bay St. Louis, MS, where youngster could spend time in the summer. mr. Ditchburn and his coworkers were able to rent Camp Onward for a short time in June before the Kingsley House program could begin. That first camp had no special name; most of its sixty-five campers were from New Orleans; and however hastily assembled, it set the pattern for years to come.

An old hotel near the river in Covington was used in 1923, and again, no attempt was made to give that camp a name. But thereafter, each annual camp honored some older person involved in diocesan youth work. As far as can now be recovered, these were the names used:

There were camps following 1935 but the names are now lost.

The Rev. Mr. Ditchburn left Louisiana in 1925, but the above listing of annual camps following his initial lead will testify to his influence. In his brief three years, he also was helpful in organizing "The Assembly"-- an association of interprochail leagues in New Orleans, one of the first truly cooperative endeavors between city churches, and this in turn led to the diocesan organization. In spite of these successes, Mr. Ditchburn had left Louisiana before the youth movement began to receive the support of many clergy. Indeed, the Diocesan Journals of those years make no mention of any of these developments.

In 1929, when the Louisiana State University moved to its new campus, the Diocese built the first Episcopal Student Center on any American campus. And after the Rev. Richard H. Baker (later Bishop of North Carolina) left after one year as Chaplain, the Diocese turned again to the former Curate of St. Paul's. so it was that in 1930, the Rev. Joseph S. Ditchburn returned to Louisiana. For the next twenty years, he would head the youth movement in Louisiana. As a pioneer in college work, he won national recognition. It was he who persuaded Bishop Sessums to issue "junior" lay reader licenses, and under his guidance, undergraduates filled vacant missions all around Baton Rouge. Many of them (including Bishop Iveson Noland) got their call to the ordained ministry serving under that kind of leadership. And in spite of his involvement at the college level, he found time to lead the diocesan YPSL. its annual diocesan convention met at the Student Center as long as he was chaplain.

While the diocesan camping program began in 1922, no mention of this youth program appears in the Journals until 1927. To that Convention Dr. Tucker reported:

This was the first mention of the youth program in a diocesan journal, five years after the camping program had been in operation. The Convention received the report without comment. I quote the report in full to note that the dream of a camp and conference center did not come from diocesan headquarters or from a long-range planning committee. It came from the young people themselves. In any history of Camp Hardtner, this deserves to be remembered.

In 1936, after some ten years of seeking recognition as a part of the Church's program, some slight progress was made. In 1935, well after the adjournment of Convention, the youth program was admitted a place on the diocesan board of education. This is the first hint that the summer program had any value as a Christian educational tool. Under the new arrangement, the YPSL surrendered control of the summer program. By then the YPSL "camp fund" stood in excess of $1600.00 (roughly $15,000 in today's market [1989]). In those days, the Diocese had no Board of Trustees charged with the management of permanent funds; each committee or agency made its own investments, bought its own bonds, and stuck them away in some committee member's bank box. It is my guess that at this point the layman holding the YPSL securities put on the hat of the board of education and continued to hold the bonds in his private lock box!

Two changes were now in the wind. The first was the addition of a camp for juniors between nine and fourteen. It followed the senior session, and both were held in rented quarters on the Gulf Coast. The other change was the failing health of Dr. Tucker. The 1936 report to convention was made by Mr. Ditchburn in 1937. In 1938, Dr. Tucker died just at the time of the gathering of summer camp.

The year 1936 was also marked by the dropping of annual names for the permanent use of "Camp Morris" in honor of the Rt. Rev. James Craik Morris, Bishop of the Diocese. Thereafter, camps were "Camp Morris for Boys," and "Camp Morris for Girls." They would continue to be held at Camp Onward since there was no widespread interest in seeking a site of our own.

The year of Dr. Tucker's death was also the time when Bishop Morris suffered a break in health. On medical advice, he surrendered authority to the Standing Committee until such time as he was competent to resume his duties. He was actually to make a brief attempt some months later, but he had to resign in October of 1938. It is not surprising that the journals for the next two years pay no attention at all to youth work.

With the consecration of the Rev. John Long Jackson as Bishop of Louisiana on May 1, 1940, all aspects of diocesan life sprang into action. having been involved in many levels of diocesan work in North Carolina, Bishop Jackson saw at once the need for many revisions in Louisiana. He directed the committee on canons to begin a restructuring of the diocese. He created a Board of Trustees into whose hands all diocesan permanent funds would be entrusted. he set the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor to work renewing lapsed parish charters, reviewing and cataloging all title deeds, revising the financial accounting, and above all, seeking professionals to staff strategic offices. But his first enthusiasm was Christian Education. his entire ministry had been devoted to that emphasis. he had for years been (and would continue to be) Director of the Adult Conference at Kanuga, NC. He was Chairman of the Provincial Department of Christian Education with no less than nine sub-committees including all aspects of youth work. For the first time in history, Louisiana had a leader whose primary concern was youth-centered. Things began to happen!

(Story of Camp Hardtner continues on next menu bar...)

This history continued from the above panel was written
by Girault M. Jones, Sewanee, TN in February 1989.

Bishop Jackson presided over his first Diocesan Convention in January of 1941, seven months after coming to Louisiana. In that half year, he had mastered many of the ways in which Louisiana differs from the rest of the world. In reporting on youth work, the Rev. Mr. Ditchburn explained that Kingsley House was not available in 1940 and that no camp had been possible. He said that this had proved to be a blessing for it alerted many to the need of a site of our own. Indeed, three sites were available, two for sale and one as a gift. He hoped that the Diocese would show enough concern to grasp one of these opportunities.

Kingsley house property being again available, Camp Morris resumed in 1941 with 101 campers from 25 congregations from across the state. But in December of that year, Pearl Harbor was struck, and America found herself at war. Many changes followed quickly. Colleges went on year-round schedules, suspending such programs as the Sewanee Summer Training School. clergy left for the chaplains' corps, gas rationing was imposed, and public transportation was heavily overloaded. Army and Navy training bases sprang up all over Louisiana, dramatically changing the routine in all nearby parish churches. many programs were abruptly interrupted, and local youth work suffered more than most. As an example, the diocesan budget for Christian Education for the year 1942 was $500!

Well before Pearl Harbor, Bishop jackson had been quietly at work on plans for a camp. The record does not show how or when it was done, but he and Quintin T. Hardtner, a lumberman and a loyal layman of St. James, Alexandria, had come to terms. mr. Hardtner offered from his Urania Lumber Company forty acres of timbered property on Fish Creek, a short sixteen miles above Alexandria. It was this offer of a site to which Mr. Ditchburn had referred in his January report. The property was acquired by purchase on December 17, 1941-- just ten days after Pearl Harbor. The cash consideration was $200, apparently providing a better title than an act of donation. I suspect mr. Hardtner paid the $200.

Even with clear title to such an advantageous tract of land, nothing could be done during the duration of the war. The Diocese had to content itself with the extended use of rented property.

The Bishop's interest in youth expressed itself in another direction. The Rev. William G. Christian, Rector of All Saints School in Vicksburg, MS, was on a train one day with Bishop Jackson. Quite casually he suggested that since so many Louisiana girls attended All Saints, it might be a good thing if Louisiana joined in joint ownership of the School. To his surprise and pleasure, Bishop jackson said at once that it made sense! And in a matter of months, Louisiana and Arkansas agreed to become equal members of a triumvirate sharing ownership and responsibility for a school which Mississippi had carried alone since 1908. That merger was concluded in 1943, and with it the annual camp site for Louisiana was effectively solved.

In the summer of 1943, Camp Morris met for the first time on its own property. The atmosphere at All Saints was more institutional than rustic, but it was commodious, comfortable, and removed from the bustle of the Gulf coast waterfront. Moreover, it was more centrally located for the upper part of Louisiana. It was to continue as the camping site until Camp Hardtner could be built.

It should be noted that while the YPSL was still heavily involved in this program, it was no longer predominant. Young people from congregations too small to have organized youth groups were now finding this summer camp their first glimpse of the larger Church. There are no statistics, but non-leaguers perhaps outnumbered leaguers. The driving force for a camp of our own was no longer limited to the League; that force was now centered in years of satisfied campers.

The Convention of 1945 was a turning point in youth work in Louisiana. Everyone believed that World War II was winding down and that it would be successfully concluded within months. People were already facing the challenges of a post-war era. Four long years of restrictions, shortages, dislocations and untold sacrifices would not disappear overnight. Some adjustments would be as challenging as had been the war itself. The thought of peace and the challenge of readjustment was in the air.

It was on the crest of this provocative wave of anticipation that the Rev. Joseph S. Ditchburn addressed the chair. So far as I can recall, and so far as the record shows, his speech was without premeditation and without previous consultation with anyone. In the course of routine business he addressed the chair and was recognized. He asked the delegates to consider what America and the free world owed to the nation's youth, how the impending victory had been won by millions of men and women mostly in their teens. he described the abrupt interruption of their young lives, the missed opportunities for normal education, the physical handicaps sustained by many, and the thousands who had given their lives in our behalf. Joe Ditchburn was not an orator. He spoke with a flat and deliberate style not even tinged with emotion. Yet that short speech verbalized the mood of that Convention. When in conclusion the speaker proposed that Louisiana raise a capital fund dedicated entirely to the rehabilitation and the education of youth as our expression of gratitude to them, the response was immediate.

it was agreed that we would call it "The Victory Fund" in thanksgiving for the war effort and in gratitude to all who had made that victory possible. Six projects were chosen. Five of them were directed elsewhere but the first and most important was a camp and conference center. A goal of $250,000 was set, and convention adjourned with all further details assigned to a committee.

Objectives were set, a campaign director was hired, and Louisiana geared up for the first professionally directed financial campaign in its history. It proved to be the easiest and the most promptly executed of all our drives. During that year, the war ended first in Europe and later in Japan, and the Victory Fund was an obvious means of expressing our thanks. Think of it: An idea launched in January of 1945, and in January 1946, Bishop Jackson could write:

Some $261,000 had been raised in cash and pledges at a time when the total of both Diocesan budgets together amounted to less than $65,000!

The treasurer reported to that 1946 convention that some money had been allocated to three of the chosen projects, but that no request had yet been made for camp use. it is obvious that as of January, 1946, nothing on camp planning had yet begun. it is interesting, however, to see that a special "Camp Hardtner Committee" had now been added to the list of standing committees of the diocese. Behind that committee title lies a story: Many people in Louisiana had wanted the new camp to be named "Camp Jackson" in honor of the Bishop. he refused on the ground that the center would be located in an area where many military camps had stood, and that "Camp Jackson" sounded like one of those. The convention listened to him but failed to take any definitive action. And when the Journal came out, a volume which he saw before it went to press, the committee was named in bold print "Camp Hardtner Committee." The matter was never raised again to my knowledge.

Again certain details are hidden from the record, but it is evident that the Bishop and Mr. Hardtner were active behind the scenes. For in April of 1946, the Nebo Oil Company, domiciled in Arkansas, "sold" to the diocese another forty acres adjoining our Hardtner tract. The price was $400 which I feel sure Mr. Hardtner paid. And unlike the earlier tract, this second acquisition reserved to the vendor the right to cut pines over eight inches in diameter and the permanent possession of all mineral rights. Thus it was that as of April 1946, the Diocese had in its possession a tract of eighty wooded acres touching Fish Creek at one corner and with a gravel county road running through it. here was a site centrally located, well-wooded, well drained, and touching the lively Fish Creek. It was isolated, but surprisingly close to a power line. There were no near neighbors, but medical and commercial services in Alexandria were reasonably close. Since the people of that area had used Fish Creek for picnics and fish fries for decades, it seemed an ideal spot. The time had come!

A special committee was named for the development of the physical facilities, and Thomas A. Davenport of Monroe was made chairman. Appointed in January, that committee could not begin to plot the ground plan until the promised additional land was conveyed four months later. And even then, it was obvious that the $50,000 from the Victory Fund plus the YPSL savings would not do the job. Architects and builders in Alexandria began preliminary work, but no one imagined any immediate progress.

On May 13, 1947, Bishop jackson recorded in his diary, "Had most important telephone conference with mr. Henry Palfrey and Mr. Thomas Davenport about the possibility of securing cabins and other buildings fro Camp Beauregard for our Camp Hardtner." This was apparently an unanticipated development. Now that the war was over, many military installations over the country were being dismantled. The diocese had already negotiated for the purchase of at least three military chapels declared surplus, but other camp buildings had not been so listed. The committee applied at once, and on July 16, from Kanuga Conference in North Carolina, the Bishop reported, "Received wire from Mr. Thomas W. Davenport that the government had accepted our bid for ten hutments and the mess hall to be used at Camp Hardtner. Also his assurance that our camp for the Diocese of Louisiana will be ready for use in June, 1948." Here was a pledge that housing for at least one hundred campers would be available in eleven months on forest lands never yet touched by a spade!

Once the buildings were assured, Mr. Davenport got busy. His committee enlisted Mr. Herbert Gremilliion, a building contractor in Alexandria and also affiliated with St. James Parish, and with architectural help no longer known, they "laid out" the camp. On a site which straddled the county road just where it crossed the creek, a full scale plan was prepared.

It was obvious that before any buildings could be moved, the site had to be cleared of trees and foundations put in place. The removal of the trees was in itself a big job. Mr. Davenport enlisted the help of a friend in Monroe, coach of one of the high school football teams. After securing surplus army tents, equipment, and the necessary tools, that squad of athletes undertook a new kind of spring training. That spring they moved on to the camp site and tackled those trees. The area had been staked out, the future buildings located, and trees tagged for removal. Somehow certain signals got mixed. It may have been the provision in the act of sale which reserved to that company all pines over eight inches wide. In any case, the football lads cut everything including the hard wood, leaving only spindly pine saplings standing stark and forlorn. Fresh hardwood stumps told us what magnificent trees had been cut. Future campers would not spend much time lounging in the shade.

On the heels of the tree cutters came Mr. Gremillion and his construction crews. Electricity was brought in, a huge galvanized metal water tank was set up on forty foot pine posts, a well was dug providing an unlimited supply of good water, and piers were set in a vast circle to receive the hutments soon to be delivered. A large building from the military base became the dining hall and another a bit smaller, the administrative building. The only new building on campus was a cottage for the Camp maintenance man and his family, placed on the upper side of the county road with water tower, dining hall, administration building and all hutments sloping away on the lower side. The athletic field (sloping badly) was alongside and behind the caretaker's cottage, and the small valley beyond wasdesignated the future "lake," in reality a pond of less than three acres. Other buildings for faculty, counsellors, cooks and senior staff were placed beyond the caretaker's house. And beyond these, on the outer edge of camp, a stone altar and rude log benches created an out-door chapel. The report made to the 1948 Convention detailed the progress to that point:

Bear in mind that this was in late January 1948, and the first camp was advertised for June of that year. I do not remember any questions raised by the delegates. The report was received without comment!

It was at this 1948 convention that Bishop Jackson appointed me chairman of a new committee charged with the organization and staffing of the first camp to be held at Hardtner. Quite rightly, he did not feel that the committee handling the development of the physical plant should be burdened with program-building. Other members of my committee are listed as the Rev. J. Hodge Alves, the Rev. Joseph S. Ditchburn, the Rev. Frank E. Walters, Mrs. Joanna Hanger, Mrs. Robert P. Howell, Miss Edith V. Smith, Mr. Raymond C. Pierce, and Mr. Lenton Sartain.

I accepted the appointment with grave misgivings. I knew why I was chosen. St. Andrew's Church had one of the most active YPSL's and several of its members were already diocesan youth leaders. I had for ten years been chaplain for Tulane-Newcomb and had worked closely with Mr. Ditchburn. I had been Director of the Sewanee Summer Training School before the outbreak of the war, and for the past several years I had been a member of the Provincial Department of Christian Education looking into Church School curricula. I had been also the provincial clerical cousellor for the Service League. He assumed that for me, planning the educational side of camp would be an easy matter.

Despite all of my activities in youth work, I had never been a part of Louisiana's camping program. I had never taught nor been on staff of a Louisiana camp, nor had I ever set foot on Camp Hardtner. My reputation had played me false; I was assigned a duty for which I was not equipped.

I felt it my first duty to visit camp and make myself known to the newly installed caretaker, look over the layout, and decide who would dare tackle so formidable a task. I went on a cold, dreary day in early spring, long before construction was finished. I was totally disheartened. A circle of crude bunk-houses, walled with celotex but with exposed ceiling joists revealing uninsulated rafters, had all windows well above eye level. No heat, and more important, no fans. The front doors were fitted with pre-cast concrete steps, but back doors stood open on the downslope and four to six feet above ground. I had visions of sleep-walkers breaking their necks! There was no sewer system, so the wash housed had only showers and hand basins, with crude privies out back. When the caretaker said he could think of nothing more pressing than to build a few birdhouses, I came away in a state of shock. Where would I find anyone to direct a pioneer session of a youth camp when the caretaker on such a shakedown cruise wanted to build birdhouses?

I cannot remember ever calling a meeting of my full committee. Its membership was widely scattered, and there was no budget for committee travel. I was rector of a parish of a thousand, college chaplain to Tulane-Newcomb, President of the Standing Committee, and Chairman of the Children's Home Board. Furthermore, I was losing my Deacon-In-Training, the only assistant I had ever had. I knew that if I did not make pre-determined recommendations to the committee, nothiing definitive would be done. I had no time to plan, nor did I have time for it. I talked with the Rev. A. Stratton Lawrence, a North Carolinian who had come to Louisiana as curate for Trinity Church, New Orleans, and who was at that time taking charge of a new mission in Baton rouge later to become Trinity Parish. With his consent, I asked Bishop Jackson to name him Director of the summer program. Mr. Lawrence had good camping experience in his former diocese, and he was imaginative and forceful. I felt he was my only hope for bringing order out of total chaos.

Despite unbelievable handicaps, he did. I do not now remember what help he had; I know he had very little from me. He fixed camp dates, enlisted the teachers, hired the cooks, found a trained nuse, furnished the camp, and on the day it opened drove in with a station wagon full of dishes just in time to wash them before the first meal.

When I had expressed the conviction that the host/hostess would not be able to meet the demands of that summer, we sought a replacement. Mr. Gremillion reported that one of his carpenters who had helped build the camp would like nothing better than to be the resident maintenance man. We hired James A. Milam, and he and his wife moved in promptly. He was soon nicknamed "Smiley" by the campers, and until his death he met all the physical needs of that ever-changing project.

The 1948 session will long be remembered not only as the first, but more particularly for what it lacked! The damming of the creek had proved impractical, so the pool was a curve in the stream with uncertain depth. The dining hall (with open kitchen in one end) was so hot that many kids got sick. screening was not complete, so some buildings were gathering places for mosquitoes. Perhaps worst of all was the use of privies, for many campers a totally new kind of hardship. It was a particularly hot summer, and the advertising blurbs about the "cool piney woods of Louisiana" soon became fighting words. Yet in spite of it all, those first-year campers look back on that session as a memorable and rewardiing two weeks.

I never had the idea until I began compiling this history, but I now regret one omission which can never be recovered. I wish someone had had the foresight to get a large legal register, and that each year the director, the faculty, the staff, the cousellors, the cooks could have "signed in." After forty years, that register would be a treasure. It would contain faculty members who went on to wide fields of service. Seminarians who served on summer camping staffs as cabin leaders are now bishops. Scores of prominent lay leaders now in their mid-fifties can look back on leaders who served them when they were junior campers. If we had had that kind of wisdom, such a book would deserve a place in diocesan archives.

All that I am reporting about that 1948 session has come to me by hearsay. I did not visit the camp at all. Bishop Jackson had left Louisiana in May not to return until after Lambeth conference. He had formally turned over to the Standing Committee authority to function in his absence, and as President of that body, it fell to me to man his office daily. All parish work had to be done at odd hours and at night, and it was never possible to go to camp. my memories of that summer are crowded and confused, but Hardtner was not then nor later a part of them; my mind was elsewhere. I was however aware of the reactions which followed that session, for many people reported to me. And the concensus was that A. Stratton Lawrence was solely responsible for a successful openiing season. His rigid discipline, his arbitrary rulings, his demand for unrelaxed service, made him sufficiently unpopular never to be asked back; yet even his strongest critics had to admit that nothing less than that kind of rigorous leadership would have succeeded under the circumstances. Instead of a camp director, Lawrence was given my job as director of camping programs, a post he was eminently qualified to fill.

(Story of Camp Hardtner continues on next menu bar...)

This history continued from the above panel was written
by Girault M. Jones, Sewanee, TN in February 1989.

Bishop Jackson suffered heart failure in London and died in Virginia on September 2, 1948, after having been brought home an invalid. Two months later I was elected his successor. All those problems which during the summer I had put on "hold" awaiting his return were suddenly mine for keeps! And by the time the 1949 Convention met in January, I had ranked in my mind the most pressing of those urgent needs. In the area of youth work the most pressing need was a sewer system at Camp Hardtner which would meet the requirements of the state Board of Health. No sessions of any kind would be likely without it. There was no money. The Hardtner Committee had been authorized to borrow as much as $30,000 to complete what we had, and further expenditures would have to be cash.

As Bishop-elect I had been invited to address the Convention banquet in lieu of any guest speaker. I chose to speak on the things lay people could do to make my job as bishop successful. At a time when few people saw"ministry" as lay-inclusive, I stressed the importance of lay participation in all aspects of Our Lord's work. For a number of years, Bishop Jackson had dreamed of a diocesan organization of laymen and an exploratory committee was already in existence. The speech ended with two direct requests of the delegates: I wanted their efforts to aid and abet my efforts, and I wanted their share to be a corporate and organized one. I would be grateful for all their individual loyalty and support, but what I needed was their organized support.

I came away with the feeling (as one usually does) that nothing I had said made a whit of difference. But when in February I asked Tom Davenport how we could solve the plumbing problem at Hardtner, he said simply, "Let the laymen do what you asked them to do. You asked us to pull together; here's their chance." To my relief he took charge. I never knew what lay person in any town he first approached, but in a few days he scheduled luncheon appointments in five or six towns where he and I were to meet a selected group of laymen. I was to make the appeal, enjoy the fellowship, and leave any follow-up to the local group. I made this appearance in four or five towns without any one at any time offering a specific dollar! but within days the $15,000 was in hand. mr. Gremillion had been so certain of the outcome that he had begun the sewer work well beforehand; it was finished in record time and paid for with ready cash. That whole system, from sink to cesspool to filter bed, has served these forty years. At the time of building the state rated it up to municipal standards.

Beginning with that summer of 1949 and continuing to Bishop Noland's consecration as Suffragan Bishop, I felt it important for me to make myself known at each of the summer sessions. I wanted those hundreds of kids to remember me as a camper. A bed was reserved for me in the "clergy house" so that I could come and go as often as possible. My roommates were the clergy on the teaching staff, and whether to honor or to ridicule me, they mounted a crepe paper mitre over my special cot. I called it a tester; they called it a baldachin. By whatever name it made my cot distinctive.

Mr. Quintin T. Hardtner heard how much time I was devoting to camp and he asked me about it. I told him why I thought it important and that I hoped eventually to build my own cabin on the grounds so that my family could be in residence with me from time to time. he like the idea and responded at once, "Draw your plans. Urania lumber Company will donate all the lumber." I was surprised for I was not expecting that. I drew simple plans and asked "Smiley" Milam our carpenter-caretaker to figure up the bill of lumber. In a matter of days, the lumber was delivered. "Smiley" framed and roofed the cottage, set the windows, and put on the asbestos siding. All the interior was left to me to complete with the aid of such clergy and staff members willing to help. That was in 1950 and 1951, and today three bishops and their families have enjoyed that Hardtner retreat.

A new canon was adopted in 1950 creating a Board of Managers for Hardtner comparable to those managing both the Children's Home and Gaudet School. Since those boards had long reported directly to the Convention, the Hardtner report was thereafter handled in the same way. One might say that a phase of the diocesan program which in the 1920's was scarcely heard had at last won its place in the Church.

No history of this camp can be complete without mention of those directors who managed the business end of the conference center. I have already reported my inability to list all the separate directors of the many summer sessions. I can, however, list those persons hired to manage the facility's operation. And the first of those was the Rev. James Rayford McLean. Mr. McLean had been a business man who sought ordination under the special canon for older men. Bishop Jackson had sent him to Sewanee for a stream-lined training and had agreed to let him apply for ordination in late 1948. After the Bishop's death, the Standing Committee fulfilled that commitment and Mr. McLean, upon ordination to the deaconates, was placed as the first resident minister in Mt. Olivet, Pineville. Prior to that time, Mt. Olivet had always been a chapel of St. James, Alexandria. The Hardtner Board turned promptly to him to combine his parish work with the management of the summer program at camp. His task was a big one, for procedures had not been established, our rights to wholesale rates were not assured, no trained kitchen staff was carried over from the earlier year, and bookkeeping systems needed standardizing. The 1948 session had been hastily done so a "shake-down cruise" was needed in 1949. Mr. McLean served effectively in those pioneer tasks and when he left for Arkansas after the 1951 season many operational routines were well established.

Mr. McLean was succeeded by Mr. George E. Wallace, Jr., an insurance man in Alexandria who was willing to test his ability to manage Hardtner in addition to his own business affairs. He served with distinction for several years and was the first to warn that an operation depending solely on tuition fees would ultimately run into trouble. He saw to it that fees were adjusted, that the annual surplus be reserved for emergency needs and not used as a nest-egg for the next operating budget. He managed the camp until 1958.

Once the sewer system was in place, I turned my attention to a swimming pool. I had dreams of youngsters running ahead of their leaders at swim call, diving into a creek swollen with the night's rain, and breaking a neck on some submerged log. We simply could not control sixty boys at swim time in so unmanageable a setting. Again, we had no money, and again, the Louisiana Laymen rose to the challenge. No professional builder would promise a pool the size we needed for the money we hoped to raise. One of our own laymen, Douglas Warriner, who ran a canning plant in St. Francisville, offered to build one with his own crew and at our price. he did it, and the pool was in use for the 1951 camp. I confess that it was an unfinished job. There were no concrete aprons, and rough planking had to serve. We had no filtration system and no automatic chlorination, and that meant draining the pool every few days. But the well's flow was unlimited, and those changes kept the water cold. By acting together, the laymen had again come to my aid. (It was some years later that a second well, very near the pool, was dug.)

Very early on I had remembered that many donors to the Victory Fund were businesses and people not connected with the Episcopal Church. I saw the need of using the camp for some wider purpose. This was the origin of tow summer sessions called "Camp Sessums." these were "scholarship camps" by which underprivileged children could be sent. I went before the New Orleans Rotary Club, thanked those individuals who had shared in our Victory Fund, and proposed a camp for children in orphanages and in under privileged homes, and without regard to church membership. Other members of the Hardtner Board made similar pleas in many parts of the state. As a result, several hundred children came to the boys' or girls' camps on fees provided by community service clubs and individuals, the choice of recipients being made by local social agencies or by local clergy. We provided all staff. That program continued until the multiplication of our own sessions made the timing impossible.

By this time our next great need had become apparent. We needed an assembly hall big enough to accommodate our larger gatherings. What we had called either the "rec" hall or the administrative building was now too small, and mosquitoes made outside meetings difficult at night. We needed a screened pavilion, large enough for chapel on rainy days, and with a service area for multiple uses. By this time the Rev. Iveson Noland had been consecrated Suffragan Bishop with responsibility for Christian Education, College Work and Laymen's Work. The camp was now his domain, and I had asked that he live in Alexandria for that particular reason. I had no part in the planning or the raising of funds for the pavilion, so I can give no details. But the laymen provided some $20,000 that year for the assembly hall, an enlarged kitchen, and a sound system. I confess that Bishop Noland was far better at button-holing prospective donors than I ever was.

After his consecration in 1952, the Suffragan Bishop made the Hardtner report to convention. In his usual cryptic fashion, he gave concise summaries of the previous year and usually added a brief, "and what we next need." In 1955, he reported that the previous summer more than 1400 had registered for some type of gathering at Hardtner, and this did not include the day visitors who came for meals or for single classes. He closed that report by saying that our greatest unfilled need was a proper chapel.

The 1958 season began with a deficit, long forecast as inevitable by our retiring business manager. Mr. Ralph McGowan agreed to be interim manager until a permanent successor could be found, and by rigid economies and an adjustment of fees, he ended the year with a profit. He was succeeded by Mr. Robert Gaines of Tallulah, who took charge on January 1, 1959.

Not only did Mr. Gaines inherit an operating surplus. He came into office as a lovely new chapel was being added to the campus. Let me quote the 1959 Journal:

There follow separate resolutions of appreciation to these several donors. Wonder of wonders, especially to those 1948 campers when no fans were available, the new chapel was adequately air-conditioned!

In 1958, the tenth year of my episcopate, the Diocese launched a drive for $600,000 for capital improvements to many diocesan-owned facilities. Some $450,000 was pledged and much more was to come later when certain parishes conducted their drives deferred for local reasons. Of the net receipts, fifteen percent was allocated by convention to Camp Hardtner, and over the next several years many further improvements were made. A second lake had been built and was now doubled in size, baths were added to the cabins and the wash houses were converted for staff members who brought families, and the swimming pool was modernized. (At some time long before this, the entire eighty acres had been fenced.) All these improvements, and especially the chapel, made a much wide use of the camp possible. Even in the early years, adults had braved the rigors of primitive living and had enjoyed it; life at camp was slowly becoming more comfortable.

Mr. Gaines had one significant advantage over his predecessors. As a businessman already retired he was free to devote more time to the operation. he was able to come often between seasons, and he and his wife, Dollar, moved in to camp quarters for the summer. He served ably in these tasks of management until his retirement in 1965. He was succeeded by mr. Morris Peters who had come on the staff to supervise the plant following the death of Mr. Milam, and who was able to combine his care taking with the routines of management.

Under the leadership of Bishop Noland, first as Suffragan, then as Coadjutor, and finally as Diocesan Bishop, there was a steady maturation in the services rendered by the Camp. More and more, adult conferences became a fixed part of each annual schedule. Annual retreats for both clergy and laity became normal parts of the program. And as the work was slowly melded as an integral part of the Department of Christian Education, more sophisticated goals were set. The 1965 sessions for example set deliberate aim on a clinical approach to Christian life, exploring both the psychological and the spiritual shortfalls in past programs. Attempts were made to enlist better qualified teachers, older and more experienced counselors, and a broader and more helpful curriculum. Gradually the annual Hardtner reports to convention gave way to the broader coverage of the Department of Christian Education of which the camps and conferences were only a part.

Perhaps the greatest shift upward in Louisiana's educational upgrading was the appointment in 1961 of an Archdeacon for Education. Louisiana had at one time had an archdeacon for missionary work, a most important post during and after World War II when many small churches were vacant for lack of clergy. I had terminated that work when I was able to staff all vacancies. We had also had for a number of years the services of Miss Jaminette Hennesey, a trained Director in Christian Education. The Rev. Willis R. Henton, a priest of the Diocese, accepted the post of Archdeacon and was able to combine both the missionary and the educational themes. he gave special attention to those small congregations needing guidance in educational matters, yet at the same time he was able to personalize diocesan interest in all aspects of mission. He guided small missions during vacancies, he unified educational projects for the isolated. Above all, he oversaw the program side of camps and conferences. Six years of that kind of leadership accounts for much of the maturation of our educational work. Both in their outreach and in their influence those Hardtner programs enlarged the importance of Hardtner as a diocesan resource. When Fr. Henton left in 1971 to become Bishop of Northwest Texas, Louisiana was grateful. That appreciation was publicly attested when he was called back in 1980 to Bishop of Western Louisiana.

Except for reference to such events as the ministry of Bishop Henton, I have made no attempt to detail Hardtner's history since my retirement in 1969. There are many whose personal involvement can illuminate the documentary records, and those documents themselves ar more available to them than to me. My interest in telling the story up to 1969 rests on the conviction that firsthand reporting is the lifeblood of history.

Girault M. Jones
Sewanee, Tennessee
February 1989

For the 1996 convention of the Diocese of Western Louisiana held at Good Shepherd, Lake Charles, Mr. Ron Roberts of St. Marks, Shreveport, put together an evening program on Camp Hardtner in anticipation of a Capital Fund Drive for an expansion of the Camp and Conference Center at Hardtner. I was asked to give a brief history of the camping program in the years since the excellent history written by Bishop Girault Jones, covering the years from its opening in 1948 to the year 1971.

At the end of the evening program on the Camp and Conference programs at Camp Hardtner, I was asked by several persons, including Judge Tom Yeager of St. James, Alexandria, to put my history down in an expanded paper. I told Judge Yeager I would and I am responding to a reminder from him to do so!

Bishop Jones's ends with a story of my appointment as the Archdeacon for Education, and the attention I gave to the Camp and its program. It wa in those years of the mid-sixties, when I was an Archdeacon, that many changes were made in the camping program.

I decided I would write this in an anecdotal form, without trying to dig out materials and search for names. it will be a story. I am hoping it will prompt others who love Hardtner to respond with their camping stories so that we can add a supplement to this anecdotal history.

I came to the "undivided diocese" of Louisiana in 1958 after mission work in the Philippines, and I was on the staff of a lower-age camp in 1959. Soon I was the Dean of Junior High Camp for several years. It was a period of much camping in the United States and the models were much the same - a good bit of regimentation, with a big emphasis on recreation, sports, swimming and competition. For urban children, it was wonderful to be out-of-doors, and for all children to be away from home and to have relationships with many their age. Most camps had themes and our themes were Christian ones, with regular worship. The clergy designed programs which some considered to be "Sunday School" in the wood; others saw the opportunity for good clergy-camper relationships and had themes along the line of getting along with others and knowing the church.

Some of the theme "feed-ins" were not much remembered. There was a rumor that a previous camp for junior campers had their learning sessions on "Gelosian Sacreamentary," which was a liturgical manual of the early church. But much good resulted - the life enjoyed in the out-of-doors, close peer friendships, getting to know clergy and always, a deeper knowledge and appreciation of the Eucharist, celebrated first in an outdoor chapel and later in the lovely chapel which was a gift of members of the Hardtner Family. There were many gifted clergy and laymen and women who gave their time gladly in the camping program. Fathers Robert Ratell, Harold Bott, and Richard Wilson are clergy who come to mind; and also Youth Commission clergy members, Fathers Robert Dodwell and David Comegys.

Past campers often spoke to me of how they learned so much about the Eucharist and the church and chapel talks; and they all enjoyed chapel.

But there were things that bothered me about the camping program. The individual camps were too large for our facilities. This necessitated too many rules and much regimentation. The clergy and adult lay leaders would end a session exhausted. I remembered a vestry member questioning me if I really needed all of my vacation time, since supply clergy were not often available and I had had all that "restful time" at Camp Hardtner!

One great drawback in the program was the use of recent high school graduates as cabin counselors. They were not enough separated in age and experience to lead with positive cabin life. They usually knew nothing about age characteristics.

The biggest problem to me was a rainy day because there were too many young people for good programming in the pavilion. i tried, for instance, to avoid dances in my junior high campers. The girls were almost always more mature than the boys. They wanted dances and the boys generally did not. but rain for most of one camp session drove me to my wits end. I proclaimed an evening dance. The girls disappeared and emerged with big round curlers in their hair, looking like people from another planet. The boys did not want to bathe, insisting they were already clean from swimming.

But all in all, with good clergy leadership, a wonderful time in the out-of-doors and many new friendships, most campers went home happy and came back next year.

I must say here a word about Bishop Iveson B. Noland. He was always there for the staff and the campers. He gave the program great support, by appearing for at least one day at every camp during the summer session.

When I became Archdeacon and was given large responsibility for Camp Hardtner by Bishops Jones and Noland, I became aware that the post-camp evaluations that were required began to produce some eagerness to see of we could improve the program designs. A group of young clergy - called by Bishop Noland as "the Young Turks," were called upon to think about the program "theologically!" The group included Earnest Bel, Urban Holmes, Bob Dodwell, Jim Reed, Bob Cooper, and later, Miller Armstrong, and yours truly.

We began with some Anglican characteristics of community: to love the created world and its children, of living with little necessary law but with much "grace;" and keeping in mind that all free people need "space!" We ended with a very simple formula - we would endeavor to have a design where all youth could experience "Christian community" and consider the camping area "their space."

Also heavily involved in the work in this design and its practical working aspects was the designated head of the Camp Hardtner Commission, which was part of the Department of Christian Education. For many years this was a parish priest, the Reverend Thomas Wade, who understood and appreciated the new design. Again the program that "came to be" had the full support of Bishop Iveson Noland.

And now for the "shifting of gears" that took place from the "think tanks" of the "Young Turks:"

I took my training at an Ecumenical camp at Glen Rose, Texas with camping people from various church organizations in dioceses and districts - Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Lutherans, as I recall. There was a camping faculty member from a Department of Camping at the University of southern Illinois. The Presbyterian camp at Glen Rose had a wonderful rural site on the Brazos River. There was a central lodge, but we were encouraged to camp out for days at a time. I not only learned additional skills about cooking, but a great deal about the bonding that can take place out in the woods, sharing camp duties and sharing ideas about life! I learned to cope with a woman who had a bitter tongue and was critical of most of our views! It was a good lesson. I stopped thinking of how I wanted to throw her into the Brazos River to throwing a lot of humor at her. It worked for both of us.

It was there that I learned to use the natural environment for Indian games - lying on our backs and listening to the music of the cottonwood leaves in the wind, and telling stories based on the shape of the lovely cumulus clouds.

A wonderful change took place that greatly helped our camping sessions. Father Jim Theus suggested to me Joe Bordelon as a Camp Manager to replace our retiring manager who did not care for youth as far as I could tell. Joe and his lovely wife, Grace, came and loved being there and made the camp a happy place to be. The first camping summer session with the new, relaxed, family like design was a near disaster. It was too loose! Too much free time! Too much staff "creativity" - such as the designing of mats for the meal. Our program director quit, so Mary Dodwell and I tightened things up. A little structure tightening gave basic discipline; the counselors performed well and understood their leadership roles in follow-up on clergy themes and in being pastors and true counselors in the cabins. The campers loved it all. They enjoyed their college counselors! Bonding took place that has lasted for years. Campers felt that Hardtner was "their space," especially those in high school. We all felt closer to each other. The Hardtner "magic" was working.

There was much greater use of the camp site in the area woods. The Hardtner Family gave us permission to camp and hike in their woods next to the camp. We did camping out and for some years had a pioneer camp in the woods led by Father Miller Armstrong and Mary Dodwell.

The First time the planning staff took to the woods for an overnight stay was traumatic to some. One priest refused to go. Father Dodwell was not at all enthusiastic. We had planned not to go out if it rained and when a small cloud appeared, came a flash of lightning, Father Dodwell fell to his knees and called on all to pray for rain. It didn't rain!

On the first camping overnight with counselors, Bishop Noland came with us and celebrated the Eucharist in the woods - very moving for us all. he knew the tracks of an early satellite and would catch its orbit of the Earth for all of us to see. One of the greatest assets of the camping program has been a rich harvest of priests. My first ordination in the new diocese as its First Bishop was to make two former campers Deacons - Keith Milligan and Hal Hutchinson. My last ordination before retiring was to ordain a former camper and staff person a a priest, Father Michael Adams.

I had over nine years away from Camp Hardtner as Bishop of Northeast Texas. I gave a lot of time to their camp program. We lived in dorms out on a prairie site and camp sessions were smaller in number and so it was more relaxed. i removed all clergy who didn't want to help with camp as all clergy had been forced to serve before. it greatly improved the atmosphere and we did change to paid college age counselors and a training camp. The Senior Camp spent tow days and nights in a cottonwood grove on the Canadian River - on land owned by an Episcopalian rancher. The "Hardtner magic" worked again.

I need to say that the change in design in the Camp hardtner program was not welcomed by all. Thee was considerable resistance by some clergy. But we "stayed the course." When I returned from Texas as the First Bishop of the Diocese of Western Louisiana, I found the design hammered out in the sixties was going strong. The dedication of the clergy and staff was outstanding. The training camps were excellent -with many improvements. I felt right at home. I went to all of the training camps and talked about the Hardtner model, and then visited all camps, if only for a day.

I confess to loving Camp Hardtner. The campers use to say that God lives at Camp Hardtner. It is certainly a sacred place to me and many others. This document is a testimony. It doubtless has minor mistake in it. Campers and staffs, being human, had problems arise, of course, at times, but for many, the camping program blessed many and served our Lord well.

I have said little here about the use of the camp for conferences, retreats and so forth. The load was light in my early years here but much loved and appreciated by many who came. In my first year back here, I was asked to give leadership to a venture in mission drive, where the design was to give on-quarter of the funds raised to build a conference center at Hardtner. The drive was a great success - the goal of $1,000,000 was met and $400,000 extra dollars were received.

The Conference Center was built and I have never felt a greater honor than to have the Conference Center main building named Henton Hall.

The Conference Center has attracted many for conferences, retreats, Cursillo and parish and diocesan planning events. We moved clergy conferences and the Episcopal Church Women's Conference there. There is no question but with these moves and the continuing camping and youth activities there, Camp Hardtner has become a very important spiritual center of the diocese.

With much reflection of my retired years, I have come to be very concerned about one aspect of the success of both programs, the camping program and the Conference Center programs.

It has to do with the success of the new design in camping that made it "their space," a spiritual place for the campers. I can see that there has been a slow switch to hardtner being largely an "adult space."

I urge all who love hardtner - the youth and the adults who are many, to give careful thought to how the new property and buildings will have design "space" for both the youths and the adults.

May God bless and keep Camp Hardtner!

Amen.

Willis Ryan Henton
First Bishop of Western Louisiana
Retired