Ron Furst, Camp Director

"Safety is our number 1 concern," replied Mr. Furst, when asked about his comprehensive 18-point check list. "I'd hate for one of our staff or campers to be injured by malfunctioning equipment. That's why why every new piece of gear is put throught the most intensive, dangerous, life-threatening situation we could think of, before approving it for general use."

 Mr. Furst proudly displayed his latest purchase, an 8' Prodigy 10 kayak. "Take this baby here. So far I made assistant director  Cullen  McGough try it tied behind a truck, filled with live scorpions and even thrown directly into the mouth of an active volcano. He should be out of the hospital sometime next week." 

Standing on the riverbank next to the raging torrent of Niagra Falls (seen right) Mr. Furst prepared for his final test of the kayak. "Hey they don't call me "Safety Furst" for nothing!" crowed the exhuberant Camp Director.

The Lodge

This past Wednesday, New England got smacked with a propper northeaster, dumping about two feet of snow on us all. So today, Ron & I headed up to the camp to shovel off some of the buildings.

Jeremy Karson

Alex Fletcher is a washed-up '80s pop star who's been reduced to working the nostalgia circuit at county fairs and amusement parks. The charismatic and talented musician gets a chance at a comeback when reigning diva Cora Corman invites him to write and record a duet with her, but there's a problem--Alex hasn't written a song in years, he's never written lyrics, and he has to come up with a hit in a matter of days. Enter Sophie Fisher, Alex's beguilingly quirky plant lady, whose flair for words strikes a chord with the struggling songwriter.

Ron Furst, Camp Director

YORK - Resident Ron Furst has spent eight weeks of almost every summer at camp since he was 6 years old.

A former private-practice psychotherapist with an masters in education in psychological counseling earned at Boston University, Furst is now 58, and, for the last 20 years, he’s been the owner and director of his own summer camp for kids, Camp Hawthorne, on Panther Pond, in Raymond, Maine.

Furst’s wife, Diane, a school librarian for the town of Exeter, N.H., along with the Fursts’ two children, sons Asa, 23, and Peter, 20, is also an intimate part of Camp Hawthorne’s operation. In the winter, they reside in a sun-filled home on the upper reaches of the York River, and there The York Weekly met with them recently to discuss a disturbing new development in summer camp enrollment - a drop in interest in wilderness adventure programs.