For two years, from August 24, 2005, to August 21, 2007, this site posted news and hosted photos and discussions about Culver Summer Camps at Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana. The site is now closed, but will remain open as an archive of things said, stories told and memories recalled. New registrations have been disabled and the photo gallery has also been switched off.

Please browse through our discussion forum, photo galleries, Culverpedia Wiki and other sections of the site to learn more about Culver Summer Camps or to recall days gone by.

Here are some key blog posts that you might enjoy:

• Culver Headmaster Explains the Aviation Shutdown
• Greatest Week Ever: Naval Two dominates camp sports
• A look at Culver’s TUXIS program in 1920
• Culver Academy Reviews on the Web
• Culver Naval School Admissions Catalog (Glorious vintage photos)
• MyYearbook.com, Great for summer camps, bad for vain people
• Culver 2006 Staff Profiles
• Q and A with the new Woodcraft Camp Director
• Everything you need to know about the Summer 2006 Naval School Upgrades

Thanks to everyone whose comments and contributions supported this community. I learned a great deal from all of you and hope to see you again by the shores of Lake Maxincuckee some day.

Brad Flora Publisher, GoCulver.com
Naval 2 Sr. Counselor, 2004-2006
Naval 1 Alumnus, 1996-1998
http://www.bradflora.com

Hi there everyone……it’s been a long time since I’ve updated the site. Grad school’s been quite intense and, to be honest, Culver hasn’t been in my immediate thoughts a whole lot. This site’s been more or less sitting around collecting dust. If you’re interested in getting it moving again or just want to say hi, drop me an e-mail. (mrflora at goculver.com)

Here’s something interesting though. As many of you know, Culver announced it was pulling the plug on its aviation program this winter. This didn’t come as a huge surprise to many I’m sure, but a lot of us were definitely hoping the academy would find a way to put planes in the air again.

That was not the case however.

John Buxton, Culver Academies’ current and 12th head of schools, wrote a letter to aviation alumni and supporters back in January that I just stumbled across today. In it he explains the official reasons for closing down the program. As I found it quite interesting, I thought I’d post it online.

Dear ____________:

At its fall meeting, the Board of Trustees voted to discontinue the Aviation program at Culver. A general announcement of this decision has not been shared with the alumni or the student body, but an announcement will appear in the next edition of the Culver Alumni Magazine. I am writing so you have advance notice of this and so that you will not be surprised when the formal notification is made. You have been close to the Aviation program at Culver, and you need to understand why we have reached this very unfortunate conclusion. Obviously, the tragedy that occurred on August 10, 2005 was extremely difficult for the school, the staff, and the families involved. The accident led to 12 months of intense examination and questioning and a thorough analysis of every aspect of our program. We had all of our planes examined; we did benchmarking with other aviation schools; we worked with the FAA and the NTSB closely as we tried to get answers to our questions; and we worked closely with the insurance company to see what the future might look like. In the final analysis, it was clear that it would be too great a commitment of assets to one program in order to bring aviation back to Culver as we have known it.

You may know that this past summer we offered a ground school program for aviation students. We created a state of the art aviation lab so students could participate and practice in a “virtual” environment. The program was actually quite successful even though no one left the ground. We provided transportation for students to travel to local airports for their flight training, but most students seemed content to work in the lab for their training, knowing that they would be able to pursue individual pilot lessons after they attain the age of 16.

In the meantime, we have thoroughly researched the cost and the limits for insurance coverage, the costs of new planes, the cost of relocating the airport and runway operation farther away from the Woodcraft Campus. We concluded we were unable to conduct the program at the level we would want with the protection we would need. Clearly this is a financial more than a philosophical decision.

I imagine you will be disappointed, but I certainly hope you will understand and support our decision. I wanted you to know that this decision to discontinue the program has been reached and that the official announcement will be coming out in a few months.

I hope this letter finds you well, and I appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely yours,

John N. Buxton

What do you think of the letter?  Any thought son aviation getting shut down? Suprised?

DISCUSS THIS IN THE FORUMS

“Shown is an original cigarette lighter with the CULVER anchor logo on one side. The other side has a sailing ship. The enameling and colors are bright and in very good condition. The lighter mechanism works, but there is no fluid or flint. The bottom is marked “PREMIUM QUALITY AUTOMATIC”, Japan. I believe it is from the 1950s or early 60s. If you collect CULVER items, don’t miss this scarce lighter. The fixed U.S. s/h will be $3.50, in a protective mailer.“

Current bid is at $19.99. Looks like a neat item.

Check out the Auction Page on Ebay

Check out other Culver-bilia Relic Auctions

In the “pointing out Culver Stuff on the internet” department those of you on Facebook.com should check out the new Culver Summer Camp group started by Go Culver member p_de_laborde a few days ago. It’s already ammased 131 alumni/camper members and could always use a few more. Some moderate trash talking taking place in the wall posts already….nice.

So what does everyone on here think of all the changes coming to thefacebook? The miniFeed? Opening it up to anyone and everyone? Have you set your privacy settings the way you want them, you know, so your parents don’t see all the pictures from last weekend’s party?

In case you hadn’t heard about the whole “opening up” thing, here’s the latest piece of opining from facebook founder/corporate mascot Mark Zuckerberg:

“I want to clear up some rumors and ask for your feedback.

Right now a lot of people want their friends to use Facebook, but they can’t get on. Soon, we’re planning on letting these people register for regional networks.

I know a lot of you are worried about this and how it changes the site. Honestly, it shouldn’t change much for you. College networks will remain exclusive to people from those colleges. High school and work networks will remain exclusive as well. Only your friends and other people in your networks can see your profile. This is what makes Facebook different, and we’re not changing it.

From reading a lot of your messages, it seems like some of you want more separation. Do you want to be completely invisible to people who aren’t in a college or high school? Do you want to make sure they can’t message or poke you? We like hearing from you. Please send us your thoughts on how we can make this work for you.

And just to clear some other things up: we’re not putting up more banner ads, we’re not charging anyone, we’re not letting people put random HTML in their profiles, and we’re not selling your information. Facebook is about increasing information flow and connecting people, not these things.

Please send us your thoughts here.”

You heard the guy, if you’re not happy with widespread access to facebook.com, send him a note to let him know.

Personally I would rather facebook stick to just those with .edu e-mail addresses simply because it gives an actual sense of identity to the site, separating it from myspace and the rest of its ilk (which serve their purposes, just different purposes). I have no doubt that there is immense pressure being brought to bear upon the facebook viziers by their financiers, people who gave them a great deal of money and expect a return on their investment. Do you think widening access to the site will bring in more visitors? Will it affect the frequency with which current members check out the site?

If facebook opens up to the public, will you visit it any less? If it’s no longer an exclusive site, will you still hang out there?

Respond in the Go Culver forums

theFacebook.com - link

New York Times Articles on Facebook

Also, with the addition of member MURILLO Go Culver.com’s finally picked up its 601st member. Nice…..now if I could just find some time to get things rolling on the forum again…

Also, hope you like the new look to the front page.  It’s been a while since I’ve done much work on it and I wanted to get those muscles moving again.

Hi there, welcome to Go Culver.com.  Hope you had fun at camp this past summer.  Now that you’re at home though, this web site is the only place online where you can hang out with your camp friends all year long.  This is an unofficial site set up and managed by some Culver Summer Camps alumni to offer Culver Campers, Parents, and Alums a place to hang out with eachother online.  Read more about the site here.

Depending on your relationship to Culver Summer Camps there are all sorts of things you can do here on Go Culver.com involving words, pictures, and even video.  Click on the link that fits you to see what’s happening on here:

• Camper Offerings
• Parent Offerings
• Alumni Offerings
• Camp Staff Offerings

To get started, create a GoCulver profile (like a myspace or facebook profile) so you can start adding pictures, posting in the forums, and tracking down other Culver friends from the past or present.

If you have any fun stories to tell from this last summer, start posting them in the forums.

Contact me if you have any questions or problems.

Left Culver this morning finally…took me quite some time to write my comment sheets and get the barracks squared away this year. This week I’ll be running errands from my parents house in Michigan and trying to post up retrospectives about Company Two from this last summer for people to read/hopefully enjoy.

If you have any pictures from this past summer on your digital camera or computer you can upload them to our photo gallery for people to enjoy. Lets try to get more pictures from this summer in the galleries.

Also, spread the word about the forums to people getting home from the summer. lets start getting people on here and getting some discussion going about camp and what people are up to now that they’re home.

While in Culver, check out our lighthouse! There is quite a story behind this structure, but suffice it to say that it was used, as far back as at least 1895, to signal Lake Maxinkuckee’s steamboats that a train had arrived at the station bringing hundreds of visitors to the lake for recreation in those days when people traveled here by the thousands to swim, picnic, visit friends around the lake, or visit the Academy. Roads were terrible, and train and boat travel was the norm.

The lighthouse, slowly falling into disrepair over the years, finally went down after it sustained damage in the “Big Wind” of the summer of 1913. Thanks to a photo from the CMA catalog of 1895 (provided by Academies’ archivist Bob Hartman), we now know that the original lighthouse was built well before the 1900 date we had originally believed.

 At any rate, those who have been around Culver this past winter will be familiar with the whole story: the Antiquarian and Historical Society of Culver donated a re-creation of the lighthouse to the town park in October, 2005. This was destroyed by vandals in January of 2006, which shocked the town and got a lot of local folks involved in helping re-create the re-creation! What was eventually erected in the town park, just a matter of weeks ago, was a much sturdier, finely crafted reproduction of the 1895 structure, complete with specially-made copper dome. The existing lighthouse, as photos reveal, is much larger than the original, but it’s a nice tribute to the rich history of the lake, the town, and the Academy. Stop by Culver’s town park (the public beach area) on Lake Shore Drive and take a look!

More photos — and history — of the original lighthouse here.

Also, Civil War and local (Culver-Lake Max area) history buffs may be interested in this. Ray Boomhower, author of The Pen and the Sword, a biography of Civil War General and Ben Hur author Lew Wallace, will be speaking at 10am on Saturday, July 22, at the Antiquarian and Historical Society of Culver’s July gathering at the Wurster cottage on East Shore Lane. Boomhower will also appear at the library downtown for a book signing at 1pm. Lew Wallace is said to have written the first few chapters of his blockbuster novel (most famous for the 1950s, award-winning film version with Charlton Heston) at the Allegheny house just east of Culver Academy. More on that here.  Wallace was an amazing guy…besides his Civil War and writing career, he was head of the trial of the assasination of President Lincoln, and was — among other things — a U.S. ambassador.

All are invited and both events are free, so come check it out!

A recent addition to the library’s history website:

The Culver Calendar from the 1940s ((probably the late 40s) includes a photo for each week of the year. Some — though not all — of these photos were taken by Col. Edward Payson. More of his Culver Calendar photos can be seen here.

The “Get Amped for Camp Online Reunion” will indeed kick off in a few hours at 9pm EST. To cut down on the number of anonymous guests sitting in on it the forums will be going “members only” starting at 8:45pm EST. Guest access to them will return at midnight tonight EST.

If you can’t remember your log in information click here to get a new password or here to make a new profile.

See you in a bit!

As part of the festivities taking place on the board tomorrow night (click here to learn more) we’ll be unveiling some really tremendous vintage Culver documents that have recently come into my possession.  I don’t want to spill too many beans before I go live with them but let me say that a certain someone has been winning some Ebay auctions recently…one of these is a real screamer that you’ll all love…

Looking forward to tomorrow night!

RSVP for the reunion here. Think of some ideas for what we can talk about too!

As the date draws nearer for camp to start this summer, I know that I — and my nearly 3-year-old son, if he only knew it! — am looking forward to Sunday afternoon parades starting….as well as Saturday night Council Fires, seeing the Ledbetter out on the water more often, the Moonlight Serenade, the sailboats on the lake each afternoon…Culver in the summer!

Presented here is an early 1960s postcard from the collection of Pete Trone, who himself was involved in Culver Summer Camps for years, has some great stories, and is one of our great local resources as a fount of historical knowledge. As always, click to enlarge the image. The Woodcraft camp, of course, had not long been re-created on the east side of SR 117 (East Shore Drive), where today it remains, and the cabins in this photo look new and shiny to me!

Browsing around our Summer Camp photos to find this one, another one caught my attention, relating also to the Black Horse Troop, or at least to horsemanship, so I’m throwing it in here. I don’t know the specific origin of this photo, but it comes from the collection of beloved, longtime Culver barber (retired) Verl Shaffer, and depicts a very early scene of the “rougher, tougher” days of Troop, when campers marched all day at times, camped in the field at night, carried canons by horseback, etc., etc. It would be interesting to know exactly where they’re riding in this picture, and exactly when, but I found this an interesting photo…

Had a happy moment just today when Culver resident Sandra Wakefield (who is also head of our Friends of the Library organization) dropped off a bag of old Academy Roll Call yearbooks from the 1950s. To be exact, 1953, 54, 56, 57, and 58! I realize these are winter school books, but they were so beautifully photographed and give such a good peek into the students and campus of the day, they’re wonderful to see. They’re also a real treasure, from my point of view, as I know they’re collectable and rare. We MIGHT own one or two earlier Roll Call’s in our history collection, but they don’t tend to come our way very often, so this is great. Sandy’s husband, Rudy, worked for years for the Culver Press (located then in what is today’s Town Hall building on Plymouth Sreet in Culver), which did much of the Academy’s printing in those days, so occasionally we get some nice donations to our collection from Sandy and Rudy.

The point is: there are some old Roll Calls in addition to other neat Culver history items (like Summer School catalogs and the like) here at the library, and any of you who are in Culver this summer (or any time!) are welcome and encouraged to drop by and spend some time in our history area browsing the collection. You’re free to bring a scanner or digital camera, too, if you’d like to digitize a favorite image or two.

Incidentally, I’ll be doing a presentation here at the library this month on Culver history: “Daniel McDonald, the Railroad, and the Origins of Culver as We Know It” on Saturday, June 24 at 10am for the Antiquarian and Historical Society of Culver’s annual meeting. The meeting and my talk — which includes a Power Point full of photos — is open to everyone, and there should be coffee and refreshments. So drop by and take a listen, come up and say hi, have some coffee and relax! And hey, think about siging up as a member of the Antiquarian Society…they’re a great group that does a lot of good relating to Culver history…

DISCUSS IN FORUMS

With just over 2 weeks to go before Culver Summer 2006 kicks off I’m taking down the ropes and throwing open the doors to a new discussion forum, the Parents Forum.

This discussion board offers a place for Culver Summer Camps parents to meet other parents and to learn more about Culver by talking to them as well as Culver Alumni, Staff, and perhaps even a few campers. I’ve posted a short welcome message in there already along with some links that parents might find useful.

So for all those parents out there with children at Culver Summer Camps or who have ever had children attend Culver Summer Camps, you now have your very own place to interact informally with counselors, other parents and alumni. I hope you find this a useful service.

For all you campers out there, tell your parents about this forum. Tell them they can use it to get in touch with your counselors without having to pick up the phone for example. Point ‘em to Go Culver.
The Parents Forum Index | Discuss Ideas for the Parents Forum

The right sidebar on front page now sports a new “Culver-bilia Ebay Auctions” link that will take you to a new section of Go Culver.

The new page displays the current ebay auction listings for 1 of 4 different search terms at a time. Depending on which link at the top of the page you click you will see search results for either “culver academy,” “culver indiana,” “culver summer,” or “Lake Maxinkuckee” in eBay’s listings.

This will help cut down on clutter on the front page while also letting people see more auctions at a time. Hope you find something cool!

New Culver-bilia Ebay Auctions

Discuss

What do you think of the new ebay section?

Every month its fun to publish the search strings that pull people onto the site from google. This month is no exception here on Go Culver.com though for some reason things were a bit quiet on the search results from for us compared to last month. Anyway, here are the things people searched for in Google that led them to GoCulver.com in order from most popular to least. As you can see, Tunak Tunak Tan and its many iterations continue to tear up the charts…Strangely enough we don’t do to well on the “Culver Alumni” searches. bah.

Tunak Tunak Tan English Lyrics and Video are Here

Here are the searches: …Read the rest of this entry…

You can now add a link to your MySpace profile, myYearbook page, livejournal, blog, or any other web site in the bio information next to every one of your forum posts. Pretty slick. Details in the link below. This way people can read something you write in the forums, look over to the left, and then click a link to check out a web site of your choosing.
Annnnnd, I’ve put together a collection of banner links for people to put up on their myspace, myYearbook, Xanga, Livejournal, blog, or whatever other type of web site they run. All you need to do is copy the code snippet below each image and paste it into your page. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.

Nifty MySpace Banner Links

BOOM.

Thats the sound of your mind expanding from what I’m about to tell you.

Live chatting is now available on Go Culver.com to anyone who’s added themselves to the Go Culver Guestmap (check the “Guestmap/Chat link in the navbar).

Consider this part of the website to be a “beta” test as we try it out.

I don’t foresee us using it outside of the next online reunion but it’s nice to know it’s there.

DISCUSS