Long before there was a Florida Storytelling Festival at the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora, there was the annual Story Camp.
Many of our current storyteller members have fond memories of the days when Florida tellers would gather each spring to celebrate storytelling.
Those memories will be shared on Friday night (Jan. 23) in the Lakeside Inn’s Alexander Room. The Story Camp Revival: Stories, Music, and Memories begins at 10:15 pm. during the annual Festival.
The first Story Camp was organized by beloved tellers Jennifer Bausman and Annette Bruce in 1984. It was held at a rustic Florida campground on Lake Moon. It later moved to Lake Yale, home to the Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center in Leesburg.
The annual Story Camp became a nationally known event. Each spring storytellers from throughout Florida and across the United States would offer workshops and concerts in an intimate setting. It later became “Storyfest” and then the “Florida Storytelling Festival.”
It was so successful that first year Annette and Jennifer founded the Florida Storytellers’ Guild. In 2000, it became the Florida Storytelling Association. Robin Schulte, who is coordinating the event Friday night, says she was lucky enough to have attended many of these camp meetings.
“I remember seeing David Holt debut his percussion jumpsuit, an inventive zip-front jumper that looked like he might be preparing to work on a car,” she noted in a recent email to this Blog.
“But he had rigged it with percussive pads that played like a drum kit. Then he proceeded to tap his thigh, his chest, his arm, and other body parts in a magical drum solo. We were all mesmerized” she wrote.
Robin also recalls the strong impression that the late Appalachian storyteller Anndrena Belcher (no relative to FSA board member Walt Belcher) made with her “strong mountain dialect and gorgeous phrasing.”
Robin followed her around for the entire weekend, wanting to be in every workshop she gave.
She also recalls “the incredible Carrie Jean Wharton emceeing an evening concert in the main hall at Camp Lake Yale where we came together each night to listen to stories. She came out dressed in a Chef coat and hat and introduced each performer as a course — wine, appetizer, salad, entree, dessert— as if we were experiencing the fine meal that is storytelling. It was brilliance that only she could bring.”
The closing concert during those early days would feature stories and songs with the national tellers as well as Florida tellers.
Storyteller and FSA Board member Pat Nease also has memories of the Story Camp
“I attended the Florida Storytelling Guild’s (yes, that’s who we were) Story Camp the last two years we were at Camp Lake Moon. And camp it was” she says. “Accommodations were bunkhouses with bring your own linen and toilet paper, absolutely dreadful food (Melinda Munger and I snuck off for a town lunch), the kind of place where you get to know each other – and help each other – in a very short time. “
“It felt like family. There were no TV’s (we had no time for that anyway) and the only phone was in the office. There was a motor court nearby where some of the attendees stayed along with the featured teller, but I always thought those folks were missing out. “
“One memory that stands out that first camp is all of us gathered in a circle in the middle of the camp learning how to juggle. I think some actually did – but not me, and not yet. Not from lack of trying.”
“I didn’t want to go home. Ever. I had found my people!! I felt I had run away and joined the circus.”
Pat recalls that there was no stage. “In the evenings we gathered in that sweet old wooden church – there were around 30 of us? – and told stories standing at the front, in the sanctuary, a couple of steps up from the nave. If you wanted to share a story before the featured teller, you put your name in a can and if your name was drawn, you told. There was a strict 10-minute limit and Steve Brooks would be standing by with his “crook” to yank you off the stage if you went over. We all feared that CROOK!”
“This is where I first heard Mitch O’Rear tell Wiley and the Hairy Man, fell in love with Melinda Munger and her magical voices, listened to Jim Mittelstadt take us along on life journeys, delight in Cissie Griffin regaling us with her Kentucky accented tales, heard so many from whom I learned so much: Linda Chancey, Kim Rivers, Carrie Jean Wharton, Phyllis NeSmith and Myra Davis, who soon became a dynamite tandem team, and so many others.”
“There were workshops with Annette Bruce and Jay O’Callahan (the 10th year anniversary featured teller), Virginia Rivers, and, I think, Margaret Read McDonald – though that may have been at Camp Lake Yale.”
“I did not want to leave that place” notes Pat. “I loved the feeling of inclusion, no matter if you were a newbie or an old salt, the working together to solve problems – we were there during a horrendous March storm that brought down trees and killed the power – the discussions of what exactly was that meat we were eating, the joy of sharing and learning and support. I think the togetherness is what I miss most about camp. Getting to know people.
Those Story Camps continued from the founding in 1984 to 2017 when the “camp” became a “festival” at the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora.
“We hope to give the old timers a chance to share and remember the early days,” she explained. “And we want to give the newcomers a chance to experience and learn about this rich history. “
DO YOU HAVE A STORY CAMP MEMORY? DROP US A LINE AND WE WILL ADD IT TO THIS BLOG OR BRING IT TO MOUNT DORA TO SHARE ON FRIDAY NIGHT!
FSA member Nancy Case recalls: “I attended the first one and several after at Lake Moon. The in-camp accommodations were rough, there wasn’t always hot water, but everyone was so excited and happy it didn’t matter at all. Jennifer Bausman and Annette Bruce were our fearless leaders. Classes were held in what were very diverse buildings, I remember one small building, a gym and a building with several rooms near the place we ate. There was also a larger church-like space we used for the main space. I don’t remember whether anything was climate controlled but I kind of think not. It was a great adventure for everybody there. There were so many of us who were there that are gone now. In fact, I think a large proportion of the original attendees have passed or no longer come due to health issues.”
This photo is from the 2003 Story Camp
Back in the day when we all ate together at Story Camp cafeteria.
Attendance was smaller in those days but the talent was big. Bil Lepp at 2004 Story Camp.
STORY CAMP HISTORY: Since 1984 the following storytellers shared stories at the camp: Donald Davis, Elizabeth Ellis, Bil Lepp, David Holt, Loren Niemi, Ed Stivender, Chuck Larkin, Bill Harley, Antonio Rocha, Kim Weitkamp, Megan Hicks,, Barbara McBride-Smith, Mij Byram, Donna Washington, Carmen Deedy, Anndrena Belcher, Pat Nease, Frank and Mary Lee Sweet, Carrie Sue Ayvar, Tamara Green, Windell Campbell, Doc McConnell, Aunt Peggy, Jay Smith, Dale Webber, Kay Watts, Betty Greenwood, Philip Blackburn, Anne Romans, Henrietta Smith, John and Joanne Ward, Ralf the Storyteller, Michael Parent, Danny Burzlaff, Jayme Green, Jim Mittelstadt, Joan Taylor, Gwenda LedBetter, Tommy Scott Young, Bert and Noel MacCarry, Sherry Cotter, Melinda Munger, Terry Deer, Ruth McCormick, Judith Leipold, Michael Parent, Jude Parry, Anne Pellowski, Annette Bruce, Mitch O’Rear, Cathy Neel, Carol Birch, Jay O’Callahan, Monte and Carla Froelich, Phyllis Nesmith, Shelly Harsbarger, Diane Ferlatte, James Clayton, Sam and Molly Worley, Gladys Cogswell, Odds Bodkin, Milbre Burch, Gerald Hausman, Joseph Bruchac, Ajuamu Mutima, Melinda Munger, Rick Stone, John McLaughlin, Michael Haun, Valada Flewellyn, Doug Lipman, Jeff Gere, Kaye Byrnes, Dan Keding, Diane de Las Casas, Eth-Noh-Tec, Susan Klein, Ada Forney, Sherry Norfolk, Jackson Gillman, Caren Neile, Roslyn Bresnick-Perry, Gail Rosen, Nancy Donoval, Joe Wos, Vivian Washington Filer, Michael Parent, Molly Catron, Michael McCarty, Kuniko Yamamoto, Sandy Walker, Kevin Cordi, Tom Rinkowski, Dovie Thomason, Bobby Norfolk, Beth Horner, Olga Loya, Mary Hamilton, Len Cabral, Elaine Kitchings Heather Forest, Margaret Read MacDonald, Rex Ellis, Roz Bresnick-Perry, Gladys Varga, David Novak, JJ Reneaux. Johnny Moses,Dan Keding, Mary Hamilton, Suzie Schaeffer, Nancy Kavanaugh.
My memory may be wrong, but I think Johnny Moses also told at this event one of the times when I was also there. I’m not seeing his name, but I also might have missed it.
Yes. Thanks for calling attention to this. He was a teller at the 12th Story Camp in the early 1990s. His name as been added to the article.
Additional info from Mary: This was either at Lake Yale or that year the event was in the Clearwater/St. Pete area — I remember how he told a particular story, but I can’t recall which event location.
Yes. Thanks for the info. His name as been added to the list.
This is rich!
Kudos for creating a most meaningful and fun gathering. The past will take the present by the hand, and bring eveeyone together into the furure. Bravo!
So looking forward to this special presentation at the festival. Story Camp was a beautiful mix of family reunion and absolute wonder. Gathering with the storytelling “tribe” in an intimate, joyful environment where we shared meals, conversation, time, hugs and….stories. It definitely shaped and influenced those of us lucky to have been part of it. We learned our craft and found our friends at “Camp.”
One correction….Camp moved to Mount Dora and became “StoryFest” in 2013. Began with a mini-fest that summer followed by the full festival at Lakeside Inn in February 2014. City of Mount Dora came to us and asked us to relocate the event. It was a big decision but made in the best interest of our future. We needed to grow, bring in new people and the remote location of Lake Yale was an obstacle to that goal.