Camp Buck Toms: The Greatest Place for Young Men to Work

by Cameron McDonald

for Advanced Composition, East TN State U, December 2011

Boy Scout Reservation Camp Buck Toms is the summer camp for the Boy Scout’s Great Smoky Mountain Council in East Tennessee. Located outside Rockwood, Tennessee and on the shores of Watts Bar Lake, Camp Buck Toms has served the scouts of East Tennessee for over fifty years. It has been my privilege to attend and work at Camp Buck Toms over the last ten years. I loved my job at the summer camp and I would not trade the experience for anything. It was a challenge to be able to work at the camp but it was worth it.

History of Camp Buck Toms

The Great Smoky Mountain Council started its journey in 1915, only five years after the beginning of the Boy Scouts. Camp Buck Toms was not the first and only camp of the Great Smoky Council. Several camps have served the council over the years such as: Camp Helpful in 1915, in what is now the Smoky Mountain National Park; the Scout Ranch in 1919, in Powell, Tennessee; and Camp Pellissippi in 1936, on Norris Lake.

Camp Buck Toms began in 1952, when William Perry “Buck” Toms bought a hilly 700+ acre plot of land on Watts Bar Lake, and donated it to the Boy Scouts with the condition that there be a summer camp built on the property. Three years later, in 1955, the first Boy Scouts began classes at Camp Buck Toms.

When Camp Buck Toms opened, the 155 scouts and leaders arrived by boat. There were no roads leading to the camp grounds. The scouts lived, ate, worked and attended classes together for a week without any modern conveniences like electricity or running water.

The Great Smoky Mountain Council provided Camp Buck Toms and Camp Pellissippi for scouts to attend each year until the 1970’s. In 1977, the dining hall of Camp Pellissippi burned down. Since then, Camp Buck Toms has served as the only summer camp of the Great Smoky Mountain Council.

How I became a Staff Member at Camp Buck Toms

Since 2001, I have spent every summer at Camp Buck Toms. I moved from Texas to Tennessee in the summer of 2001 and my mother immediately signed me up as a camper. I did not want to go to Camp Buck Toms. I missed Texas and my Boy Scout friends from my home state. The first year I attended summer camp in Tennessee, I fell in love with the place. I came home after a week of camping and told my mother I wanted to work at summer camp so I could stay there for weeks at a time. My mother told me that at 11 years of age, I was not old enough. This was a crushing blow but I made it a personal goal to be a staffer when I got older. I attended the camp for the next three years as a camper, longing to be one of the staff. I pestered the staff members constantly about what it took to be one of them. They told me I needed to be 1) at least 15 years old, and 2) an active participant in Scouting. In addition, it would be almost a guaranteed job if I obtain Eagle Scout, the highest rank the Boy Scouts offers. I knew I would have to wait until I was 15 and that I was already active in Scouting. But becoming an Eagle Scout scared me. Less than 2% of all Boy Scouts ever make it to be Eagle Scouts. I was intimidated by the daunting task ahead of me, but I knew if I put my heart into it I would get it. I worked hard for the next few years but I only made Life Scout, still one rank shy of Eagle when I turned fifteen.

When I turned fifteen in November of 2005, I immediately tried to apply to Camp. I was nervous that I would not be accepted because I had not obtained Eagle yet. During my interview, one of the interviewers expressed concern that I had not ranked up yet. I explained that it was my dearest ambition at the time to work at the camp and that if they did accept me I would become an Eagle Scout within a year. I was very close to getting Eagle, I only lacked one last requirement, my Eagle Scout project. An Eagle project is one that benefits the local community and the scout must plan and organize himself, then lead other scouts during the project’s execution phase. One man, my future mentor, Jack Watson took pity on my and vouched for me by promising the board he would personally ensure I came through on my promise. I was hired.

I worked at the camp for the summer and within three months of camp ending, with the guidance of Jack Watson, I earned the prestigious rank of Eagle Scout.

Highlights of Working at Camp Buck Toms

Scoutcraft

I began working at Camp Buck Toms in the summer of 2005. I worked at the Scoutcraft program area of the camp for my first summer. Scoutcraft is where scouts learn the more advanced techniques of scouting such as: advanced knot tying, wilderness survival, backpacking, and advanced first aid. I was a merit badge instructor for several merit badges, including:

· Physical Fitness

· Indian Lore

· Backpacking

· Wilderness Survival

· Emergency Preparedness.

I enjoyed teaching these classes but at fifteen years old, I encountered the problem of having students that were several years older than me. The next year I asked to be placed in the first year scout program called Dan Beard.

Dan Beard

Dan Beard is a program geared towards new scouts that do not know anything about how to survive in the outdoors. Dan Beard is where I found my niche. I was given charge boys that had never been camping before. My groups ranged from nine to twenty-five boys. While regular merit badge classes at the camp changed every hour, I was with my group all day every day. This allowed me to interact and learn about the boys in my charge while other instructors in the camp did not. I taught the boys the basics of knot tying, first aid, how to building a fire and using it to cook, swimming lessons, rifle and archery shooting, and rappelling.

I met many young men throughout the experience and I am still in contact with many of them though email and Facebook. Several of the boys I have taught have already achieved Eagle Scout themselves and it has been a very rewarding experience to watch them grow and mature into young leaders in their Boy Scout troops.

Waterfront

After three summers of working at Dan Beard, I began to yearn for a more challenging place to work, so I asked to transfer to the Waterfront program area. I got my wish at the beginning of my fifth summer at camp. Waterfront, also known as the “Chill house,” is where scouts learn everything there is to know about swimming and boating. The staff offers a wide variety of courses such as: swimming lessons, waterborne lifesaving skills, lifeguarding certification, canoeing, waterskiing, and whitewater kayaking. Over two summers, I was able to teach all of these courses and I loved every minute of it.

My favorite part of being on the Waterfront staff was the friends I made with the staff working there. If the scouts were not around, like in the evenings or on the weekend, my friends, Sam, Nick, Seth and I would go out on the kayaks and ski boat and goof off for hours. We were all certified lifeguards so we never need any additional supervision. We could play on the ski boat as long as we wanted as long as we paid for the gas we used.

The Impact working Camp Buck Toms has Made on Me

When I graduated high school and began attending East Tennessee State University, I had to choose a major. I did not have to deliberate long before I came to the conclusion that I wanted to be a teacher. The long summers I spent at Camp Buck Toms left a deep impression on my life and I want to continue it by passing along the knowledge and experience I have obtained to young mines by teaching English at a high school. I will never forget the experiences or the friends I made in the Boy Scouts or at Camp Buck Toms and I plan to work at the camp every summer I can.

Works Cited

"Great Smoky Mountain Council." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 31 Oct. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smoky_Mountain_Council>.

Great Smoky Mountain Council. Camp Buck Toms Staff Guide. Knoxville: Great Smoky Mountain Council, 2011. Print.