Photos and highlights are arranged by decade.  Click on the links above to visit the decade of your choice or scroll down the page to view the 50's.  Click on the photos to enlarge them.

1957

• Flying Eagle opens with a ball field, dugouts, dormitory, lodge, a trampoline, a huge beach, a great lake, amazing orange paddleboards (made by Gary Baduel's father), a camp bell (donated by the Seevers, parents of camper Giles Seevers) – and fresh paint everywhere!
• Campers enroll for 2, 4, 6 or 8 weeks – mainly from Ann Arbor (where Alex is well known as an All-American diver from the University of Michigan and also as the pool director of an Ann Arbor country club) and from Grosse Pointe (where Alex coached the high school swim team).

1958

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• Big things start to happen! The waterfront gets a portable dock (designed by Al Bell, a GM engineer and father of campers Harvey, Steve, Clark and Brian).
• We also get a new boat and motor and add water skiing.
• Program Director John Thursby and his wife, Maxine (who teaches archery) move into the new building for married counselors. They no longer have to live in a tent!
• That winter, CFE has its first reunion at the new U of M Exhibition Swimming Pool in Ann Arbor. What a good time!

1959

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• We get a diving tower and board, again designed by Al Bell.  Alex dives – and everyone wants lessons!
• Flying Eagle unique rules and traditions are now well established. Come running when you hear the bell!
• Formation with “All present and accounted for, sir!”
• You can take out a boat if you swim the lake.
• Council Fire with awards, PB and J’s and listening for the How-How-Ugh echo.
• Alex has an idea: personally carve Flying Eagle wallets for third-year campers. And so he does.

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