Camp K 2025: A Feast of Friends and Memories (by Charlie Franklin)

by kfi | Sep 25, 2025 | North America Alumni Events | 0 comments

A week has passed since we packed up from Camp K, yet the glow of reunion still lingers. The laughter, the music, the endless meals and conversations—they’re the kind of memories that fuel you for the year ahead, and the kind that make you vow to come back for the next one.

The Journeys

Each of us has our own story about getting to camp. For me, it took some doing. I left Los Angeles in the dark hours of Tuesday morning, spent the night in a no-frills motel outside Philadelphia, and caught a train to Elizabethtown. Teresa Teves picked me up shortly after I arrived, and before we even set foot on campgrounds, we detoured to Costco in Harrisburg. There, with Ted Hahn, Pam Schmitthenner, and Lisa Lindell Hoh, we filled carts to the brim—supplies enough to feed an army of Kodai-ites.

We rolled into camp after two, famished and half-afraid that lunch was over. But Joe Rittmann was waiting with a hot meal: pepper chicken, pork vindaloo, vegetable rice palau, rajma dal, chapatis, and steaming chai. A feast after a long trip.

Setting the Stage

The first days belong to the advance crew—hauling gear out of storage, readying kitchens, and warming up old friendships. Mario Belido lifted spirits further with his legendary ribs, corn on the cob, and baked beans for supper. We sat around the Schreiberhaus kitchen tables, tired but happy, catching up as the smell of smoke and spice wrapped around us.

My Thursday began with Bob Edwards calling from the road at dawn. He’d been driving since 3 a.m., and was hoping his coffee and a green chili omelet be ready when he arrived. I was on omelet duty, and between 7 and 9:30 I cranked out thirty of them, only burning two (they were eaten anyway). By then the camp was filling fast—Joe Kessler and Zuhair Gafur were busy with check-ins, voices echoed through the halls, and I gave up on napping once Maureen Aung Thwin and Toni Stepanik appeared in the Schreiberhaus lobby. That’s the beauty of reunion—you never know who you’ll bump into, and every encounter sparks a story.

Food, Fire, and Friendship

Meals this year rose to a new level thanks to Joe’s mastery in the kitchen and the contributions of many others. Thursday night brought chapli kebabs, Indad pork, and tomato curry. Friday the activities moved to the Pavilion, and the morning started with Mike Kolumban’s dosa, coconut and peanut chutneys, and sambar, followed by a hike through marshes, woods, and meadows led by Rob Granner, and ended with Hans Schmitthenner’s Tandoori Chicken with all the trimmings for supper. Banana Leaf Restaurant catered several spectacular meals, each one a festival of flavors—shrimp curry, rasam, biriyani, khorma, poriyal, chapatis, and more.

Cooking class with Louise Baxter, and yoga class with Sabrina Edwards Granner, chai breaks, and firepit gatherings filled in the spaces between. At night, guitars came out, voices blended, and the circle of firelight drew us close. By Saturday, with more than 140 campers present, Camp K felt like its own small village—alive with song, storytelling, happy hours, and the sheer joy of being together again.

Highlights

• The Weather: This year there was no hurricane or heat wave; just beautiful early-fall weather—chilly mornings and mild days.
• Music & Firelight: From Ellen “Dash” Walters leading singalongs in the Pavilion to Chris Granner on guitar at campfires—whether at Schreiber or up by the cabins—music was everywhere, the heartbeat of each night.
• Shared Passions: Talks and updates reminded us of our roots—Ron Koepke on Bethania Kids, Liz Easter and Iti Maloney on KIS, Margaret Greene on KFI.
• Saturday Feast: Banana Leaf’s dosa truck was a showstopper—freshly grilled masala and Mysore dosas, chutneys, sambar, rice, and Dash’s music floating through the pavilion.
• Volunteers: So many pitched in to help that I can’t name you here. You know who you are. You made a tremendous contribution to the success of the reunion.
• Class of ’66 Happy Hour: Maureen and Toni hosted their customary gathering in the Schreiberhaus lobby.
• Church Service and Music: Bob Granner accompanied Rob Granner and Bob Edwards in Cesar Franck’s Panis Angelicus, and the ad hoc choir, conducted by Wendy Osterling and accompanied on keyboard by Barbara Pickard Hays, filled the room with hymns. Ann Staal’s sermon was deep and meaningful.

Closing Notes

On Sunday, Ray Weddington served breakfast of Bombay toast with sausage and bacon, and fresh fruit, followed later by a final catered lunch before departures began in earnest. Leftovers turned into one last shared meal for the stragglers, unwilling to let the weekend end.

Camp Kirchenwald 2025, as always, was more than a reunion—it was a reminder of why we keep coming back. The food fills us, yes, but it’s the friendships, the laughter, the familiar faces across the firelight that carry us forward. Until next year.

Class of ’74 50th Reunion

by kfi | Apr 4, 2024 | North America Alumni Events | 0 comments

Class of ’73 50th Reunion

by kfi | Oct 19, 2023 | North America Alumni Events | 0 comments

The KIS Class of 1973 50th Reunion, An Outsider/Insider View – Bonni-Belle Pickard

Disclaimer! I am not a legitimate member of the KIS Class of 1973 as I only arrived in Kodai in 1978. But the person who brought me to Kodai, my husband, Alfred Pickard, had been a member of the class since 1961 and had been regaling me with Kodai stories for the three years that I had known him. I had decided I either had to go experience Kodai for myself or get rid of him. We moved to Kodai in 1978 to be on the teaching staff for two years, and we stayed for the next 20 years, during which time I got to know many members of the Class of 1973, several of whom were also KIS staff for longer or shorter times. One of those members, Priscilla Dhanapal Mohl, remains one of my closest friends to this day; we raised our children together in Kodai and worked together for many years with Bethania Home for Abandoned Children and the Kodai School Chapel and in the Music Dept. Together we navigated eye operations, a broken leg, family funerals, choir practice and Sunday School classes, committee meetings, long road journeys on the plains, legal and guardianship challenges, drought, floods, cyclones, silverfish, bundhs, as well as our children’s first days at school and their various teenage disciplinary challenges. We ‘survived’, which often seemed to be a Kodai mantra.

The run-up to the Class of 73’s 50th anniversary reunion in Kodai first came to my attention through incessant pinging of my husband’s phone in the evenings at our home in Maidstone, Kent, during COVID. After a ping, Alfred would lift his eyebrow and excitedly tell me what was going on with Johnny and Louise or Pandy or Pris or Vince or Henry or Bruce or John via the Whatsapp messages. Indeed, I knew nearly all of them and had stayed in most of their homes (or they in ours) over the past 45 years. He talked of them as if they were his siblings – their challenges, their achievements, their annoying bits – and I began to understand in a new way that they had indeed been his ‘siblings’ growing up for over 10 years together in boarding school, far away from home.

As plans for ‘the 50th’ grew closer, I got added to the Whatsapp group, and my own phone began pinging incessantly. We bought our air tickets and got accommodation and travel and what-kind-of- currencies-would-be-needed within India sorted out by those who lived locally. I knew Manju Ninan (now Alumni Director) from the years that she and her family lived next door to us in Kodai and had been close friends and classmate with Priscilla and our daughters. In typical Kodai fashion, the generations melded together when any help was needed on anything.

I knew Alfred was excited to see ‘his class’ again, but there was also some trepidation. Those formative years of his still contained potent memories – who-did-what-to-or-with-who-and-when-and-where — and why. He played over in his mind whether the old cliques would be intact, whether he would fit in, sometimes wondering if the trip would be a huge waste of time and money. But we went.

As soon as we arrived at Bengalaru Airport (still Bangalore, in our minds!), Alfred’s Indian language and bartering skills went into overdrive. Pandy had sent a taxi to drive us to his coffee plantation in the hills of Yercaud, several hours away, where the first part of the reunion would take place. Alfred and the taxi driver managed to find each other in the midday chaos of the Airport carpark, and having piled the luggage in, soon we were inching our way through the endless snarls of city traffic. After a few hours, we got to the ‘open’ highway, with its frequent police barriers blocking off sections of the road in a desperate attempt to calm the speed of the traffic. It was at one of these that we soon found ourselves in the middle of a several-car pileup. We were unhurt, but the taxi was no longer driveable. We laid low in the backseat, thankful that the tinted windows hid our white faces, while the driver got involved in the negotiations. Soon another taxi arrived to speed us off to our destination, thanks to the driver and Pandy’s connections. We arrived at the coffee plantation late in the evening, but in time for a delicious vegetarian biryani shared with nearly all the folks that I, too, had come to think of as ‘siblings-in-law.’

The next week was a blur of activities and meals and excitement and laughter – and conversation. As an ‘in-law’, I knew to respect the intimacy of the long-established links and relationships within the ‘siblings’, but they were also gracious to include me – and a few others like me who had come as spouses or actual family members – in conversation as we sat at meals or around the campfire or walked or rode around the coffee plantation. I began to realise that virtually all of them had brought their own hopes and fears and anxieties to the reunion. What about that night in the dorm or that first date or what she said in so-in-so’s class or what happened in the Budge or that time I was so homesick…? Gradually the memories of 50 (or 60!) years became subtly reshaped and re-interpreted. Some of the most painful memories retained were remembered in quite different ways by others – or not remembered at all. Had s/he actually said that, or was that just what got passed on in the gossip? And if s/he had indeed said it, was it really a case of teenage posturing rather than an indictment of my own inadequacy – or my feelings of inadequacy? Meeting each other as adults – kind, considerate, intelligent, and much wiser persons – began to soften and release the sharp edges of painful memories from uncertain teenage years.

The others from the Reunion can tell more stories about what the group actually did in that week of late February and early March 2023: the time at Pandy’s plantation (actually named after his wife, Gowri); the day-long bus journey to Kodai; the intense few days in Kodai touring the school, the Environmental Centre, the bazaar, Bob Granner’s house, the restaurants, the Alumni Banquet, the church service, and, of course, Field Day! We viewed one of the award-winning films that John and Louise Riber had made about teenage pregnancy in Zimbabwe and heard an excellent speech from Bruce Campbell about his work with Public Health for the UN in many parts of the world. We recognised that many from the class had gone on to work in mental health or church ministry or law or engineering or teaching or travel, some rising to quite high position, others remaining more low-key. Somehow all had remained faithful – or returned! — to principles learned in Kodai of respect and fairness and concern for the well-being of all, especially for those coming from or dealing with challenging socio/economic circumstances.

As we chatted with those currently at the school, we were pleased to recognise many of those same values of respect and fairness and concern for well-being, even as we heard whispered accounts of those who, inevitably, were struggling, including current students wrestling with depression and anxiety… What legacy might we leave them?

A very important event took place on the last day before some began to leave to go back to the various parts of the world they now call ‘home’. It followed immediately after the church service that the class members had all attended, one in which the class sang ‘Let there be peace on earth’ as they had at their Baccalaureate Service 50 years before. The group then piled into the school vans for a short tree-planting event on the Ganga Compound. The school’s ambitious target of re-planting thousands of shola trees had been announced, and the class wanted to plant a few trees for class members who had died since their time in Kodai.

The ecological aspect was an important draw on its own, but the actual taking time to dig in the Kodai clay, to flex leg muscles more accustomed to flat pavements than to dusty hillslopes, and, finally, to remember and speak words about those departed was even more powerful.

In short, quiet, reflective words, class members recalled the lives of three of their own who had indeed died. Words spoken out loud slowly but surely released a new understanding of the demons each of those departed – as well as those present – had fought with. For the first time perhaps, there was a realisation that each of those departed had, whether intentionally or not, taken their own lives because of the enormous difficulty of reconciling themselves and their situations to that of the outside world. Each had somehow felt that the anxieties within themselves were so unique that no one else could understand or accept them as they were.

As muscles strained to loosen the packed clay of the Kodai hillside, emotions and past memories – and prayers – were released. The class said its good-byes to those who had succumbed to the struggles. Using one’s bare hands to cover the roots of the saplings with Kodai dirt, tamping down the dust with one’s foot, flooding the indentation in the soil with the shola water in the watering can, stepping back to get the view of what is beyond: these were actions that helped the class reflect again on their own past and look to the future. Some painful memories, having been exposed to the light of day, needed to be re-buried with forgiveness. Other memories needed to be nourished for the good they had produced. And now a new generation needed nourishing as well – towards an abundant and peaceful future for the timeless Kodai hills, all those who live there now, and all who will come after.

Thank you, Class of ’73, and thank you, Kodai, for allowing me to be part of the family and part of the growing.

–Bonni-Belle Pickard