The Cincinnati Enquirer Sunday, June 18, 1989 Camp key among auction items At Fort Scott, memories for sale -- and for keeps By Christine Wolff The Cincinnati Enquirer Barbara Siegel paid the auctioneer $12.50 Saturday for what she thought was a unique piece of the now-defunct Fort Scott Camp -- the key to the front gate. It wasn't at all unique, she learned from a laughing group of former camp counselors. From their pockets they pulled key rings, each with a duplicate of the coveted gate key -- the only sure-fire way to beat the curfew on those once-a-week furloughs into nearby Cheviot. "If you had a gate key, you had gold," said Siegel's son, Dale, who spent a total of 13 years as a camper and counselor at the northwest Hamilton county camp owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati. More memories tumbled out from the dozens of former campers and counselors who came back Saturday for a chance to buy a memory at the auction. There were tales of late-night "cow-tipping" -- knocking over a sleeping cow -- and girls vs. boy water balloon raids at night, and memories of church services prepared by the youngsters and held in the woods. The memories came out tinged with bitterness at the archdiocese, whose mismanagement and lack of interest they blame for the camp's end. "They're concerned more about money -- not about family," said Julie Tuke, 28, of Anderson Township. "The Catholic church is changing so much, and this is an example of it." "It just looks like the archdiocese is giving up on kids. It's a business decision," said Mary Jean Fetick, a counselor for two years. The archdiocese closed the 204-acre camp indefinitely in April, citing concerns about contamination from the uranium-processing plant at Fernald just two miles away. Fort Scott, founded 67 years ago and the nation's oldest camp run by an archdiocese, has about 150,000 alumni. No contamination from Fernald has been found at the camp, archdiocese officials said. But attendance had dropped, and the camp's board recommended it be closed, the Rev. Len Wenke, the archdiocese's director of youth ministry, said Saturday. Saturday, the amplified babble of an auctioneer's voice carried across the unmowed fields. About 350 people registered to bid on 1,000 items deemed unable to weather an extended closing. The archdiocese will keep the land, and some of the campÕs older buildings will be torn down, Wenke said. A row of rabbit hutches sold for $5. The recipe book used in the camp's kitchen cost someone $25. Well-worn fiberglass canoes with faded paint sold for $160 to $250 each. Much of the kitchen equipment -- stoves, a freezer, refrigerators -- were not auctioned, but sold for a nominal fee to several parishes within the archdiocese, Wenke said. Proceeds from the auction will go toward maintaining the camp property, he said.