Keep Reading this Blog!

Although camp has just ended, we are already busy planning for next year. We are creating some special ways to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Summerscape and we are also working on a few surprises for DLA as well. Keep checking this blog for important and exciting announcements throughout the fall. Enjoy the rest of your summer.

DLA 2010 The Final Goodbyes

We have goodbyes from the three graduates on the newspaper committee this year: Charles McDaniel, Kiefer Mecham, and Nathan Miller. Charles and Nathan will be attending college in the fall, while Kiefer is beginning his senior year. Due to policy changes, students who have graduated high school will no longer be able to attend DLA anymore. Without further ado, here we go.

Charles McDaniel

As my first and final DLA session comes to a close, I think of all the great times I have had here since Summerscape. These memories shape me to this day, and define who I am. I have no doubt that I would be a worse person if I had never been to a Drury pre-college program, and I hope I have made that same impact on all the friends I collected in Summerscape and DLA.

Kiefer Mecham

Tonight, I am not speaking just for DLA. No. I am speaking for my entire Drury pre-college experience both at Summerscape and DLA. My time here has been incredible. To see who I was when I started and to see who I am now is truly a remarkable thing because they are two very different people.

I began here right after the death of a loved one in 2006. It is interesting, I find today, that at the time, I began Summerscape at an extreme. I was about to move, my grandmother had just passed, it was a whirlwind of emotions. Today, as I have come into my new life and settled down four years later, I am ending my Drury pre-college experience quietly and with a calm disposition.

Over the past few years, I have been able to watch an extraordinary thing. I have been able to watch my fellow campers, my fellow teachers, my family, grow and develop into who they are today. Not just this, but I am one of them. Drury pre-college programs have shaped me; no longer a quiet, shy, small-town boy, I am a confident leader thanks to this leadership academy. Summerscape and DLA have served their purpose for me. After taking care of this place for the past five summers, I speak for myself and my fellow seniors when I say that it is time for the next generation to stand up. It is your turn, my friends.

Nathan Miller

Alas, DLA is coming to a close. It's been an incredible week and a half. I've learned a lot of things and made a ton of new friends, and became closer to those friends that I already knew. Summerscape and DLA have been an integral part of my year for the past five years. It has always been a place where I gain confidence, and it helps me focus for the next year. I've watched myself and others grow through this program and bloom into the people that they aspire to be. I'm going to college in the fall, and DLA is helping me jump across the river into independent life. I'd like to close this out by thanking everyone who made this both possible and enjoyable, and would like to encourage everyone to attend in 2011.

DLA 2010 Day 9 by Mayci Shimon

Tomorrow is the last full day of DLA. Boooo! Anyway, after the usual breakfast routine, aside from the "volunteer" tray pick-up done by Seth, Troy, and Ty, we headed off to our classes. My class, Photography, consisted of an uber amount of make-up work. I still have a few more Photoshop projects to complete, and they're due tomorrow! Ahh! That aside, it's definitely fun sitting next to Kiefer and Hick Boy.

Next came lunch, a.k.a. sweet and sour chicken plus fortune cookies and chopsticks. Various failures occurred with the chopsticks and Ty was dubbed owner of the best fortune...which just so happened to be a completely blank strip of paper. After the initial amusement and more lunch munching, The Art of War class, my class, left ten minutes early...and proceeded to take over the Trekkie Physics classroom. This included: war paint, foam weapons, turned over chairs, table structures, a duct-taped door, and a window escape. The class finished with its daily readings and research for our assignment.

After a pasta dinner and the creation of our paper note bags, we shoved off to the talent show featuring acts ranging from comedy to acting. We then returned to Sunderland for Andy's Frozen Custard/Freshmen night after an amazing talent show finale performed by the RAs. The night ended the World Cup Championship between Bespin and Endor. Bespin won in the second overtime penalty shootout. Bespin then played the RAs and won 3-2.

DLA 2010 Day 8 by Abby Auner

Today marks both the author's birthday and the DLA students' return to classes after the "rest and relaxation" of Sunday.

In the evening that followed, DLA regrouped from station time to eat and then separated to form committee groups. There campers worked on the upcoming art show, World Cup ultimate frisbee games, and the DLA newspaper, among other things. Then the camp split into two factions. One group of kids watched the movie "Invictus." The other group put together welcome packs for the children attending the alternative elementary school here in Springfield.

Next DLA gathered in full once more to hold its near-daily community meeting (complete with today's episode of The Nightly News), and finally all the students got ready for bed so they can venture into another exciting day of DLA.

DLA 2010 Day 7 by Austin McGuire

Sunday isn't only a day to relax at camp, although slow to start, it was as productive as any other. The actual leadership training manifested itself in two classes specifically designed with us in mind. Some of the classes included lessons on improvisation, career choice, college choice, and stress management. The day was ended nicely with the RA's bringing in pizza. Above all, it was a relaxing day and gave us enough of a rest to start our classes again on Monday.

DLA 2010 Day 6 by Scott Lange

Saturday, despite being the weekend, started out as your normal, average day at DLA, or as normal as DLA can get. We went to classes, had our precious station time, ate our standard food, and admired Chance's baldness as usual.

But after dinner the variance of Saturday became clear. We went to the dorm to prepare for the "Back to the Future" dance. Once the event started, this reported was startled to see the incredible feats of costuming (Chad as a Roman, Chance as his past self, Trent as grunge, me as Hunter S. Thompson).

The Scapers who were there first arrived and danced for an hour until we came along with a special guest of honor, former RA Master BJ Hursh! After an intense dance-off between Chad and BJ, the clear winner (in this reporter's opinion) being Chad. The Scapers left and the DLAers finished the night with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," and of course, a long circle-y "Hey Jude."

Ace Reporter Scott Lange signing off.

7/15 : Skinny Improv, etc.

On Thursday night Scape and DLA enjoyed a show from The Skinny Improv, a local improv comedy group. A few of the campers were pulled to the stage and participate along side the Skinny performers.

Afterwards some Scapers played an epic game of capture the flag around campus while others took a dip in the pool. We did our best to thoroughly tire everyone out before we sent them to their beds.

DLA 2010 Day 5 by Kiefer Mecham

The day of Friday, July 16, two days after Bastille Day, turned out to be a rather smashing one. I woke up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy, had a brief low point in the mid-morning, but was soon refreshed after a tad bit of sugar and a touch of caffeine. In addition to all of these phenomenal occurrences, my House (Tatooine) won third place at Midnight Mayhem, thus receiving a smaller of the three Mrs. Butterworth trophies (please do not ask). After what could have been an awkward moment at Central High School, of which I was mercifully delivered, I had a marvelous Off Campus Night at the Mudhouse with seven amazing people. Indeed, today was an ideal day at Drury Leadership Academy, and I hope that more of these fun-filled, velociraptor-imitating days continue.

DLA 2010 Day 4 by Mayci Shimon

It's the day after Bastille Day! Aw, fiddlesticks! So with our official DLA holiday passed, it would appear we now have to move on in the camp.

So today has been a remotely eventful day, starting with waking up at 6:30 AM for alone time in the bathroom; unfortunately, due to a lack of air conditioning control, our dorm was freezing. We're only allowed approximately eight degrees of temperature control in Sunderland.

Breakfast consisted of various things including exhausted campers and failbacon. RA Chad (a.k.a. Ponderbeard) also provided us with an interesting story. Apparently, when he finishes college and lives in Chicago, he's going to buy a coffee machine. With said coffee machine, he will make coffee for the smell alone; he hates coffee in general. On his way to work, he would then take the unwanted coffee and provide the friendly neighborhood hobos with a warm drink.

After breakfast, I headed to my Digital Photography class to marvel in the wonders that amount to Photoshop. After completing a few assignments, we headed out to lunch, followed by the second class of the day: The Art of War.

Under the influence of our spectacular teacher, we continued to persevere through a lesson over the causes of war along with tactics. Next, came our daily viewing of Deadliest Warrior, starring the Viking and the Samurai. The Viking was defeated; a fatality was inflicted upon him by the unflinching Samurai. After various games of Mau and ERS, we learned our own tidbit of kung fu and were off to station time, which consisted of some intense Connect Four matches.

Following station time and dinner, we met up in our Leadership in Action committees. Our newspaper team gathered around for discussions and a movie.

Then we were off to Clara Thompson for the one and only Skinny Improv, followed by RC Chance and RA Wayne. Chad later joined as did camper Troy Squires. Following a very entertaining skit of sorts, most of us headed out for a thirty-minute swim. We finished up with a community meeting starring The Nightly News. Topics included highlights of the BP Oil Spill, Elvis vs. The Beatles, the weather, and Ask Hebert. We finished up the night with Mau and suite mingling only to crash at 11:30 PM.

Summerscape 2010...the fun continues!

Well, it's been pretty warm outside, but with all these cool activities Summerscape is having a blast!

Tuesday the 13th dawned warm, with clear blue skies and the smell of Messy Olympics on the air. The activity groups competed in a series of ooey, gooey, sticky, slimy, smelly, wet, and gross challenges that pushed their teamwork and dedication to the limits. Most of these were timed relay events, requiring speed and agility.

Events included:

Stick 'n' Slide

Shoe of Goo

Is that a Hose in Your Pants?

Pie the RC

Fireman's Pass

Spew the Blue

and the perennial favorite, Ben Waters is Lost in Time!

Another Summerscape tradition followed the Messy Olympics--required showers! Everyone smelled nice and clean and faintly of syrup before bedtime.

Wednesday, the 14th the camp was reminded with a rousing cheer by DLA that it was Bastille Day. A lot of the classes are picking up steam and the campers are getting involved in excursions into storm drains, traipsing through the woods, building models of the human heart, constructing marble works contraptions, and improvising great music. For the evening activity, we all headed over to the basement of the Student Center for a Rec Room night. There were old-school games such as Bingo, Pictionary, and puzzles, but the most exciting part of the evening was a Mario tournament on an original Nintendo set. Everyone met on Sunderland Field for a quick game of "Giants, Wizards, Elves," a full-body version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

DLA 2010 Day 3 by Nathan Miller

This Wednesday was a hallowed day in the Sunderland Hall at DLA 2010. It was the all-famous holiday of...Bastille Day. Haven't heard of it? I don't really blame you. It commemorates the storming of the French prison the Bastille and the beginning of the French Revolution. If you think that we came to DLA to learn how to operate a guillotine, however, you would be mistaken. For DLAers, it is the only holiday we could possibly find that always falls during the camp. We celebrate this by standing on tables and chairs and telling everyone what day it is. Another holiday well spent.

In other DLA news, life goes on. We all went to a morning class. For me, I learned about philosophy as it applies to Doctor Who. If you're wondering, it does. The Doctor is what Nietzche would describe as a "superman." So, yes, Mom, I am learning something.

And just when I thought I knew what was going on, I was tricked by a clever ploy. The entire camp was prepared for inspiration by watching Invictus. It made sense because the movie followed the number one rule of inspirational films: when in doubt, Morgan Freeman. However, once we were all lulled into believing this, Mayhem began. Not chaos, Mayhem. Midnight Mayhem is a series of "tasks" that lead to the next task. It's comparable to the challenges in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone without people nearly dying. We somehow managed to cross a river of hot lava on floating stones. We are unstoppable!

Happy Bastille Day, everyone!

Class Pictures

Messy Olympics

DLA 2010 Day 2 by Charles McDaniel

Starting off the day with Philosophy has turned out to be a great choice. It's a nice way to get my mind working early, and it makes all of us think quite a lot. Plus, our teacher, Mr. Scott Henderson, is one of the best teachers I have had here at Drury, be it Summerscape or DLA. He is funny, and knows quite a lot about the subject.

One of the major areas of study so far has been Socrates. One of the things we did early on was to simulate how Socrates would interact with people when they tried to ask him questions, and that was by simply asking, "Why?" Whenever someone states something, you simply respond with "why" over and over again, with the end result either being that you find out something about yourself, which is the desired goal, or you just end up really annoyed, which is what happens most of the time.

My afternoon class might be the most fun class I have taken here at Drury because it combines something I really enjoy, Star Trek, with something that has always interested me, which is physics. We are attempting to find out possible ways for the Star Trek technology to be functional at any point in the future, and how that series has had an effect on current and future technologies.

SummerScape 2010

7.11, Day 1

So night one was interesting with the storms canceling our evening activities but everyone had some extra time to unpack and hang out with their friends that they had not seen in a year. Lots of laughing and smiling already which is great! Instead of completing an outdoor scavenger hunt (due to the rain) we had an indoor item race. Each house group competed to find a list of items that they brought to camp. Mary’s 8^th graders won with having all 10 items between them. Way to go girls you seem to have come prepared!

7.12, Day 2

On our first day of classes everyone got on their way and seems to have had a great time with both their morning and afternoon classes. We had a little free time around campus and then it was off to our Exploration groups, which went smoothly for their first meeting. In our Exploration Groups are groups that students look at a range of subjects from leadership in the movies, character building through genealogy, team building through games, emotional intelligence, and leadership within us.

For the evening event we broke into yet another group, our activity groups and first came up with some very interesting team names and worked on a team chant. Throughout the two weeks these are the groups that will be competing in various events like the Messy Olympics and Trivia night. After our meeting we worked on “50 ways to use your noodle” as part of a team building activity for each group. Each team rotated through stations with each RA and worked on ways to work together and listen to each other. So all in all day 1 success!

Day 1 DLA 2010 by Abby Auner

On the first full day of DLA 2010, the high school students at Drury University met their teachers in a classroom setting for the first time. The teachers went over what campers should expect of their courses, and may even got started in introductory lessons.

After their first day of three-hour-long classes, DLAers enjoyed "An Afternoon with the University President," in which Drury University President Todd Parnell informed the students on how to improve themselves by telling many entertaining stories.

Campers then spent time in their house groups (the competing teams they are split into) and their Leadership in Action committees. In these, students worked to do such things as plan DLA events, prepare for our nightly community meeting, and get started on a DLA newspaper to be released at the end of the eleven days we spend here.

The last big event of the day was the Team Building Challenges. These are designed to challenge students on a mental and physical level. They also succeeded in bringing us together and making us stronger as teams.

The first complete day of DLA was filled with fun and productive experiences!

Move In

The campers are here! Although it got a little wet tonight, both camps had a great time moving into the dorm, meeting new friends and reuniting with old ones. Tomorrow will be a full day with classes, leadership in action committees for DLA, exploration groups for Summerscape and a full night of team building activities for both camps.

2 More Days!!!!

The residential staff has moved into the dorms and is planning all kinds of exciting activities for both 'Scape and DLA. We can't wait for you to get here on Sunday. Make sure you have your dance costume packed and don't forget your pillow. Remember you will need a sixty dollar key deposit on Sunday. Let us know if you have any questions (enickle@drury.edu)

See you Sunday!

Only Six More Days

Greetings to everyone who is attending Summerscape and Drury Leadership Academy this summer. We can't wait for you to arrive. Remember that check-in starts for Summerscape at 2:00 pm in the FSC and we will see the Leadership Academy students at 3:00 pm. We have a great 2 weeks planned for you. See you Sunday!!!!!