A Visit With Father Nature

Q&A With Summer Camp Legend, Steve Longenecker

Steve Longenecker has been an outdoor educator, nature enthusiast, falconer, rock climber, and “lump chef” at Falling Creek since 1975. Known as “SFL” to many at camp (Steve likes to go by his initials), the “Esefel” library building is named in his honor. However, Steve’s summer camp legacy precedes his time at Falling Creek. In this Q&A, you’ll learn more about the history of summer camps in our area, about outdoor education, and about outdoor medicine from the legend himself.

FCC: How did you first get involved with summer camps in our area?

SFL: A professor at my college (FSU) thought I’d be a good staff member for a camp in North Carolina that was part of a Camp Hiring Day at her school. The fellow from Camp Sequoyah whom she intended me to meet never arrived, but instead I met the man who started Camp Mondamin, Frank Bell, Sr. (Chief). I accepted a job there as a tennis instructor and cabin counselor for the youngest boys at the camp. It changed my life.

At the time, tennis, like nature, was a long-standing, almost-cliche’ activity at summer camp. Though I didn’t have any previous teaching experience, I knew enough to fool the director and define myself as a teacher of something. Chief and I had a mutual interest in snakes. Aside from teaching tennis, I helped him with the snake programs, joined the hiking staff, and eventually became head of that department.

Soon, I learned the basics of rock climbing from William “Wally” Wallace, who has recently been the head van driver for Falling Creek’s adventure trips. I also took a class at a one-day school in Rocky Mountain National Park. I gained more experience working with a mountain rescue group in Southern California, where I taught environmental education. I then returned with a guide book in one hand and a rope in the other, and stumbled my way through my first summer of rock climbing at Camp Mondamin.

Working at Camp Green Cove was next, then High Rocks, Sequoyah, Chosatonga, and Kahdalea. Once rock climbing was accepted as an activity that was both safe and popular, it spread to many other camps. I started working at Falling Creek in the mid-70s, and I’ve been around the place longer than any other camp. I hope that has been at plus for Falling Creek.

FCC: Where did the idea for your WEMA (Wilderness Emergency Medical Aid) program come from?

SFL: WEMA was arguably the most important contribution I made to the camp. Others might cite either the Nature Program or the Mountaineering Program that encompassed both backpacking and rock climbing. Neither, however, was unique to Falling Creek.

WEMA began at Falling Creek in the late 1970s and continued until I presented my last program, more than 30 years later. WEMA was my title, concept, the topic of two books, and what I’d like to be remembered for.

Backing up a bit, the very first emergency medical training I can remember doing was when I taught day campers what to do if a dangerous snake were to bite them. At the time, I was an 18-year-old school bus driver and college student working for a YMCA camp in Florida.

Wanting to know more, I began American Red Cross classes in First Aid and CPR, and became certified as an instructor in both areas, then an Instructor Trainer for the Asheville Chapter of the ARC. I taught adults in night classes at Asheville Country Day School, where I was a department head.

All of this stopped when I had an almost fatal rock-climbing fall. The two people with me that day had been First Aid/CPR students of mine and saved my life because they knew what to do.

After some time away from camp work (1973-75) due to post traumatic stress disorder from the fall, I resumed backpacking/rock climbing trips, working for Wolfcreek Wilderness, an outdoor education organization which was under contract to start a rock-climbing program for Falling Creek Camp. That was my introduction to FCC.

In the mid-1970s, camps had no emergency medical instruction required for their staff members like we do today, so I began Sunday afternoon classes at Falling Creek for counselors who were interested. I slanted my instruction toward situations that might be encountered in camps and taught what to do in the event of a vehicle wreck, snakebite, broken bones, cuts from axes, or if an injured camper needed to be transported. As was true then and now, FCC was on the cutting edge, with interesting, creative ideas.

Main Camp lasted for seven weeks, giving us plenty of time for long hikes, paddling adventures, climbing trips, and the First Aid Hike, where boys learned wilderness emergency skills, including team evacuation techniques.

WEMA naturally arose from that. I wanted to involve younger campers in a program that would be useful at camp but could also be important after they’d left for home at the end of their session.

The program became a mainstay of June and Main Camp sessions, with boys asking me about WEMA on Opening Day. For many years, WEMA was a big deal, with lots of attention-getting gimmicks, like squirting fake blood and eating the “brains” after using a watermelon to mimic a fake skull fracture caused by not wearing a helmet. As you can imagine, these exercises were not only fun to create and to watch as an observer, but also full of educational information.

Camper attention span, shortening the length of Main Camp, along with new emergency information that needed to become a part of WEMA, diminished its popularity. I was unable to fit it into the FCC format as the camp program evolved. For those reasons (and others), what might have been one of the most important activities at camp eventually faded away.

FCC: What do you hope your legacy will be at camp?

SFL: My name has been associated with many things over the years: the Top of Glass (TOG) trip, the “Nose Bivvy,” night hikes with the nature program, truck/bus driver, “Riki-Tikki-Tavi,” “head of homesickness,” trip calendars on the wall, recycling, and trivia bulletin boards. Inventor of Longenecker Lumps? Creator of WEMA? Father of Rock Climbing Programs for summer camps? Developer of the Falconers of Falling Creek Camp’ program? Guilty as charged, sir! Depending on the decade, campers may only know me as some old guy who has something to do with educational bird/snake programs. Other alumni many know I had a bit to do with bringing rock climbing and mountain biking to Falling Creek. I’ve held many roles at camp, and attempting to list them all soon becomes unmanageable.

FCC: As a lifelong educator, what do you think is the most important thing a person can learn at camp?

SFL: For a number of years, I’ve been asked to meet with the Falling Creek staff at the end of their Orientation Week at camp, for an environmental education talk of sorts. Somewhat facetiously, this talk has been dubbed, “A Visit From Father Nature.”

This past summer, I asked Carson Skidmore (‘09-’12 camper, ‘18-’19, ‘21-’22 staff) to assume my role for that in the future. Since I’m in my mid-eighties, it’s way past time for these young men and women to hear from someone closer to their age, not from an old grandpa.

Perhaps the best way for me to finish what I‘ve been trying do is to paraphrase words I’ve said to the staff during the “Father Nature” session, hoping that, in their own way, they might pass them along to their campers during the summer. I tell staff that during the summer, the most important things they do for the campers don’t necessarily have anything to do with teaching an activity. From the campers’ perspective, “Look me in the eye, learn about me, touch my shoulder, take me by the hand, point me in the right direction, care about my situation, focus on me, make a difference in my life.”

We’re all teachers, though often what someone learns from us is not at all what we intended. If we could somehow record what we thought was a good piece of teaching, we might be humbled by what actually occurred. Like it or not, your audience is absorbing your essence, then deciding whether to join with you or not. It’s a hard role, being a teacher. You’re under the gun, 24/7.

Whether it’s learning a new tune on the banjo, holding an animal in a gentle manner, perhaps placing a toe on a tiny piece of stone in a certain way while climbing, or cooking a Lump — when I see one of my students showing their pupil something that came from me, I also see my legacy being passed-along to the future. They are paying it forward. It brings me both great joy and even tears.