|
|||||||
 |
|
Every year at Hye Camp, we are blessed and honored to receve Archbishop Khajag Barsamian as our guest to interact with campers and staff and celebrate Badarak. Surpazan arrived at Hye Camp on Thursday night and enjoyed an overnight stay, allowing the opportunity to lead our faithful in worship on Friday morning. The service was the spiritual highlight of the week.
The theme of Hye Camp 2006 is Easter and Surpazan spoke to the camp about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He highlighted the important role that women played in spreading the good news of the resurrection to the world, and he also spoke about hope and how it is fostered in the spreading of the news of the resurrection. At the conclusion of the service, everyone gathered for a camp group photo.
The Friday schedule at Hye Camp is always a little different. The class schedule is suspended and campers received a significant amount of free time in the morning and early afternoon to work on cleaning their cabins, packing their belongings, and finishing their Olympic team flags.
In the afternoon, the last Hye Camp Olympics athletic competitions took place. A basketball tournament, volleyball tournament, relay races and a shoe-kicking contest all offered team points. Going into this final day of competition, the Purple Hyes, led by captain Maria Palaian, had a strong lead over the rest of the field, but soon found themselves in a tight race after quickly bowing out of the basketball and volleyball tournaments. Basketball was eventually won by the Teenage Khentes Ninja Turtles, captained by Ryan Patino, and volleyball went to The Hye-erarchy, captained by Chris Sarkesian.
The individual winners of the shoe-kicking contest, earning points for their respective teams, were Hunter Muckel of A Hye-er Calling in first place, Nick Mikaelian of the Khentes Turtles in second place, and Arthur Nigoghossian of Hye-way or the Highway in third. In the relay competitions, the sprint relay was won by A Hye-er Calling, the crab walk relay went to Oujheen Shounshuh, and Team Hye-dration took victory in the wheelbarrow walk relay.
After all athletic competitions were completed, the Purple Hyes found themselves running a close second to Team Hye-dration with the Khentes Turtles in hot pursuit occupying third. The Hye Camp Olympic champion would be decided by the team flag competition later in the evening.
The atmosphere around the camp following the Olympic competitions was electric. There was a lot of anticipation regarding the upcoming flag competition, plus the farewell dance would be following dinner and everyone was looking forward to celebrating with old and new friends another great year at Hye Camp.
As dinner began to wrap up, Olympic team representatives began to assemble for the parade of flags. Under the scrutiny of our wonderful camp Godparents, each flag was displayed for to the camp. When the judging was complete and the scores were tallied, Team Hye-dration, led by captain Matt Derbabian, had secured Hye Camp Olympics victory by creating what was judged to be the best team flag in the competition. Despite being accused of having tested positive for excessive levels of basterma and sujuk, the Purple Hyes maintained second place and the Teenage Khentes Ninja Turtles kept third.
After dismissal from dinner, all the campers raced back to their cabins to get ready for the farewell dance. After a couple hours of showing of their dance moves and steps learned in Armenian Culture class, it was finally time to wrap up the final full day of Hye Camp 2006.
