Hi! I’m Maggie Webb Meyer, and I am honored to take on the Tie Dye Tiara as the Mini Camp Director this summer!
I started at Alleghany when I was seven years old – the same age as our youngest Mini Campers! I spent 12 magical summers there from 1990-2001, along with my four sisters, my cousin, and dozens of lifelong friends I collected each term. Just like the song we sing, Camp was a place I called home, all summer long. As I grew from camper to counselor to college student and then into my working life, I learned that Camp is so much more than the place we go in West Virginia. It is a golden thread that connects every woman who has had the chance to experience it, and all of the girls who are just beginning their journey.
Aside from a quick trip across the river to crown my little sisters with their purple beanies as JCs in 2008, life took me far from the Greenbrier River for 17 summers. Looking back, the Alleghany spirit was never far away. A friend from Camp was my roommate in college. I spent the summer of 2003 in Chicago, nannying and taking improv classes at Second City. These were the days before social media, but somehow a Ghany Girl (my former counselor!) learned I was there and invited me to stay at her place. In the summer of 2005, one of my Ghany friends from New Orleans helped me find an apartment. Later that summer, when my air conditioning broke, another camp friend offered me a place to stay, as well as the latest Harry Potter book to read. By 2007, I was moving to Washington, DC for a job. Wouldn’t you know a woman from my sister’s JC group was looking for a roommate! We spent the next year and a half connecting with old camp friends in the city. I traveled to Europe with a Camp friend, met up for lunch in Texas, had two Alleghany bridesmaids in my wedding, and kept up with friends online as we have gotten jobs and houses and started families.
My first Mini Camp experience was in 2018, when I dropped my seven-year-old daughter off for her first taste of Alleghany. Returning to camp was just like coming back home. Some things don’t change – the same rocks in the river, the same beautiful mountain views – but other things have grown and changed with the times, like the new shower building and the emails I had received from Camp, keeping us informed from the moment I registered online. I was so excited for my daughter and jealous that she got to spend a whole week soaking up the West Virginia sunshine. It was hard to leave, but it certainly helped that many of the women who would care for my daughter that week were familiar faces.
I joined the Mini Camp staff in 2019, and love spending my week there each summer, living a very different life from my “real job” as a process engineer. The ladies on this team are absolutely incredible, and my circle of ‘Ghany Girls has grown to include LEGENDS who were at camp before I started, and a few who spent their 10 years as a camper and counselor after I left. It’s great to completely unplug, drink my morning coffee on the Dorch (a new addition since I was there!), and try to remember the words to songs that we all sang, whether we were there in the 1960s or 2000s. The Alleghany spirit unites us, and we get to spend the week each summer back in our blues and whites, sleeping in a tent, hiking up to the dining hall, and introducing the next generation of ‘Ghany Girls to this magical place!
The Mini Camp program has been such a wonderful way to reconnect with camp, and I am excited to lead it into the next chapter. As a parent of two Ghany Girls and an aunt of several more, I love that they get this one-week introduction to camp life. As an Alleghany alum, I love being back in The Place I Call Home, meeting ‘Ghany Girls old and new, for one magical week on the Greenbrier River. Those connections of those who were there before me and those who will come are woven together in a beautiful tapestry that travels through the generations. Please join me and our Mini Camp team as we continue the Ghany journey!
-Maggie Webb Meyer, Mini Camp Director
