From lonely kid to lifelong friends: One Camp Fire alum/historian’s story

Lorrie Scott
As her home camp Camp Sealth celebrates its 100th year, alumnus Lorrie Scott is looking back over her own six decades of dedication to Camp Fire. Lorrie has filled practically every role available to Camp Fire devotees: childhood member, adult leader, council board member, volunteer, staff member, conference instructor, and more. And she’s carved out a special niche as the volunteer coordinator of Camp Fire Central Puget Sound’s museum archives.
In the 1970s, some of the council’s older volunteers had started to organize, code and classify the council’s many boxes of photographs and historical materials. One volunteer invited Lorrie to see their progress. “I went in there, and I was hooked!” Lorrie says. “I was 35, so they used me to lift all the heavy boxes. I wanted to see everything, touch everything!” She joined their efforts and never looked back.
Now, Lorrie heads a committee of about a dozen other local Camp Fire history buffs. Right now, they don’t have a permanent home for exhibits, but they can bring mobile displays to events and different council locations. The historical archives live at Camp Sealth. Three years ago, they received a grant that helped them buy archival storage boxes to better preserve items like ceremonial gowns. Lorrie’s team is now cataloguing, digitizing and attempting to identify thousands of photographs.
Want to help Camp Fire Central Puget Sound put names to faces in their museum archive materials? Contact Lorrie: lorrieann123@gmail.com
Lorrie knows that every photograph holds stories of how Camp Fire has changed the lives of its members. Her own Camp Fire tale? It’s all about belonging.
Lorrie’s early school days were lonely. She missed part of her kindergarten year due to severe illness. For first grade, her overcrowded district bussed her to another school, where she didn’t know anyone. Late in the school year, a Camp Fire leader came to the class to hand out brochures.
“There was a picture of a lonely, sad little girl,” remembers Lorrie. “I thought, that’s me!” The brochure also showed a group of happy girls in Camp Fire uniforms. Lorrie wanted that kind of friendship.
She took the brochure home, her mother filled it out, and, just like that, Lorrie found her place.
The next year was filled with Camp Fire activities: group meetings, tea parties, quilt-making sessions, crafting cradles for Christmas gifts.
“I still have that brochure,” says Lorrie.
By third grade, Lorrie’s mother had become her Camp Fire group’s leader, and Lorrie continued to expand her Camp Fire involvement. By high school, she was in one of Seattle-King County’s many Horizons Clubs, with thousands of members in clubs spread out over multiple districts. One year, the high school officers chose Vietnam as the focus for their service work. They found out about a Seattle native, Dr. Patricia Smith, who needed bandages for the hospital she started in the Kontum region of Vietnam.
“We went and got sheets, everywhere we could find sheets, took the seams out, cut them in 2 or 3-inch wide strips, rolled them into bandages really tightly, and fit them into coffee cans,” Lorrie remembers. “And we sent thousands of these to Vietnam. [Dr. Smith] needed them, and she kept asking for more.”
Lorrie says this project made her more aware of the war she saw playing out on the nightly news. Camp Fire service projects kick-started her lifelong commitment to helping others. “If there is a volunteer need, I do it,” says Lorrie, who has given her time to the Goodwill Games, Bikes 4 Humanity and as a docent for a local lighthouse.

Lorrie receiving her WoHeLo
Another way Camp Fire altered the trajectory of her life was the nudge it gave her to continue her education. Lorrie was determined to become a camp counselor after high school. At that time, there was a requirement that counselors had to have a year of college under their belts. But college wasn’t an expectation in her family. Neither of her parents and none of her relatives had gone to college, and many hadn’t finished high school, either.
“I was not going to miss being a camp counselor!” says Lorrie. “I knew I was going to college from the time I was in sixth grade.”
So Lorrie majored in recreation and spent her summers working at Camp Fire camps in Washington and Ohio, where she had visited during a camp exchange program in high school. In her adult life, Camp Fire continued to claim a large part of her time and heart. She’s done everything from running day camps to teaching self-reliance classes. She took on leadership roles and pitched in where necessary. She’s been in both paid and volunteer positions. “At that point, I didn’t really care, as long as I was involved!” Lorrie says. “Whatever came up, I’d give it a try.”
Now she hopes to pass on Camp Fire values to her grandchildren, two of whom are in the group Lorrie leads now. Lorrie knows the experiences they have now will have a big impact on their futures. After all, the friends she made in Camp Fire group are still her friends today; they stay in touch on Facebook and with regular meet-ups.
“Even though group programs were our strength and backbone, those of us who stayed really, really close met at camp,” Lorrie says. “We still get together three or four times a year, sing our songs around the campfire and remember those we’ve lost.
I was so happy to run across the Campfire post on FB! I was a Bluebird in 1959 and ‘flew up ‘ in 1960 as part of
Camp Sealth. It was a wonderful experience, and if we hadn’t moved to Southern Ca. (where there was nothing but Girl Scouts at the time), I would have continued. I had so many friends left behind! We were honored to sing all of the college/university fight songs at the opening of the Worlds Fair, and I imagine many of you were there as well. I have some photos which are in a collage of our troop if you’d be interested. Fun times and great memories!
I have spent the covid lockdown journaling my 12 summers that I spent at Camp C’Andy, formally located in Faxon, Oklahoma. So far , I have written 175 pages or songs, stories and memories!!! I share my stories with my life long friends on our Camp C’Andy website.
It’s been fun reliving those fun filled days of day and resident camp!!!!
Lorrie Loved your story. I too spent many enjoyable years in Camp Fire. You mentioned spending time in a camp in Ohio. Any chance you spent time in Camp Shawano [near Dayton] or Camp Yakewi [near Cleveland]? Unfortunately Camp Fire is no longer in Ohio, but I have much of the history of the Cleveland Council which no one seems to want. Wohelo Bev Bowlby
Congratulations, Lorrie! And congratulations to the Campfire Girls organization! My mother was a Camp Fire Girl in the early 1920’s . I have some of her badges displayed with my Girl Scout badges from 1945 onward.
Rolling bandages for WWII was just one of my wonderful memories of service. I too led in camps! Friendships, education through merit badges , services to the community and the USA along with eternal nature experiences molded my life.
Thank you Camp Fire for all the positive impacts on so many lives. Priceless!
I am part of Camp Wintaka through the Long Beach Council in Southern California. Our CITs caravanned up to Camp Sealth several times as part of the CIT experience.
Hello, my nameis Lorrie also…i lived in San Diego in the 1970’s was in Campfire from 1st grade to 12th grade mostly as an independent i attended grand council with other independent kids. Sold candy most of those yrs to attend camp. In the early 2000’s my camp i attended burned. Wolahi in Julian, california. Wish i had more pics of back then
Enjoyed your story Lorrie! I too was a Blue Bird, Camp Fire Girl, and Horizon club member from 1955 – 1966 and enjoyed attending and working at my council’s summer camp.
I was a Camp Fire leader for my daughter and her friends and took them all the way through the Horizon program. I also was Executive Director of a Camp Fire Council In Coffeyville, Kansas for 8 years! I have many wonderful memories from Camp Fire both as a youth and as an adult!!
Camp Fire is still inOhio! The No-We-OhCouncil is located in Findlay. Camp Glen is our camp. This past summer was Camp Glen’s 62nd year in existence. We have had several reunions and always have fun singing, reminiscing and remembering. We even have our own Facebook page
I spent Covid journaling my 12 years plus all about my camp, Camp C’Andy. Located in Southwest Oklahoma in a small town Faxon, Okla.
I have journaled over 200 stories,songs, and memories !