The center of community life in Buladean has closed. Buladean Elementary School closed its doors for good this week. While we haven't lived in Buladean for over 15 years, I can only imagine what losing a school can mean to a small community like Buladean. When TrailRidge was operating in Mitchell County, the neighborhood school had over 100 students in grades K-8. On its last day they were down to just over 30. Those 30 kids will now have to travel down the winding road to Bakersville come this fall.

TrailRidge had a few campers from the Buladean School and all of our kitchen staff once attended there. L. G. Sheets, mentioned in the article, was a TrailRidge friend.

So long Buladean Elementary.

Click to read the article in Friday's Asheville Citizen-Times. There's also a link to a photo gallery.

Next month will mark the 30th year anniversary of the founding of TrailRidge Mountain Camp.

This website has been a great way for campers and staff members from the original TrailRidge to have the opportunity to rekindle old friendships by reconnecting to the camp and to each other. It has been really nice to hear from some of you long lost souls and I had a wonderful treat this week when Kirk Moyer from Louisiana emailed me that he had found the site. He sent me a paragraph of some of his quick memories and I wanted to post that as soon as I read it. But Kirk said, "Wait, I want to take some time and send you a whole bunch of his memories." And he did.

It's amazing to think what we all can remember from 30 years ago. For some of us, we were "adults" even then...but Kirk's recollections were from the time when he, like so many of our campers, was just 11 and 12 years old. What a memory.

Click to read Kirk's story. It's a great one.

And please consider sending in your own. I certainly don't expect you to write as much as Kirk...but don't let me stop you.

Thanks Kirk. You made my day. Actually, you made more than my day!