#ncobs50

t's Friday! You know what that means, it is the official start of our 50th Birthday Bash Weekend! If you are in the Asheville area, check out our event calendar (www.ncobs.org/50/events) and stop by to reconnect. #ncobs50

Alumni Blog: Coming Full Circle

NCOBS Field Staff have been creating life-changing experiences for students from all walks of life for 50 years. The Outward Bound “magic” doesn’t happen without them. That’s why, as part of our 50th Anniversary Campaign, we’re raising $1 million for a Field Staff Support Fund—the proceeds of which will provide initiatives that attract and retain the best possible field staff. Everyone who gives from now until the end of the month will receive a Blue Peter sticker and a personal thank you note from an NCOBS instructor. 

FINAL CALL FOR RSVPS! 

Alright folks we are finally about a month out from our 50th Anniversary Weekend Bash and we are making final adjustments based on numbers, so if you are planning on joining us for any of the following events or want a goodie bag (need to pick up that weekend,) make sure you RSVP here: goo.gl/NZzUGK

Friday Night: Welcome Social at NCOBS Headquarters

Friday Night: 50th Campaign Gala at the Biltmore

Saturday Afternoon: School-wide Celebration at Salvage Station

Saturday Night: Staff Reunion and Campout at Table Rock

BE PART OF THE LEGACY

Craig Kesselheim

Instructor, 1974-76

This is the crew I co-led with Mary Williams. I'm in the front row, far right. Mary is in the back row, far left. We made a great team. This was my final course experience, September of 1976, and I finally had an adult crew. Except one outlier student who was 18, I was the youngest in the group at 21. This picture was taken at the finish line of a 15 mile marathon we had all ran on our final day. A memory I have from this adult group is that they took just as long as their teenage counterparts to launch out on their hanging rappel from Hawksbill. The difference was that instead of trying to talk their way out of the challenge (typical of many of my teen students), these guys spent their nervous energy talking themselves into the leap! "I need to do this! I need to do this!" I carry indelible memories and a lot of pride through my life from those formative summers of leadership, camaraderie, exertion, and personal growth.

Did you attend a NCOBS course and want to share your own story or photos? We want to hear from you! 

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FIRST STUDENTS RETURN 50 YEARS LATER

ASHEVILLE – Andrew Williams Jr., 66, recounts each day of an outdoors adventure he took 50 years ago as if still living it.

He describes scaling mountains in the winter, trekking a half-mile through thick woods for breakfast, and going on a solo expedition in the wilderness with only a candy bar and a live chicken.

At each memory he grows more animated with the laughter, awe and incredulity of his past 16-year-old self. After half a century, he said, the memories and the lessons he learned at the nonprofit North Carolina Outward Bound School have stayed ingrained in his being.

Williams was among the 1967 first class of NCOBS, headquartered at Table Rock Base Camp just outside the Linville Gorge Wilderness in Pisgah National Forest.

The world-renowned school celebrates its 50th anniversary this year with a series of events commemorating the outdoor, expeditionary learning institute that is often described by many of its 160,000 alumni as life-changing.

As an alum of the very first class, Williams uses that term often.

He was raised in the inner city of Richmond, Virginia, and had never camped or done anything “outdoors” such as hiking, rock climbing or camping. His high school offered some boys the chance to try an introductory program at a new type of school in the Western North Carolina mountains.

“It proved to be more challenging than fun, to say the least," Williams said. "It was life-changing, doing something I’d never done before."

He said he arrived at the NCOBS Table Rock Base Camp in early winter with a bunch of other teenage boys, a duffel bag filled with cotton clothes like jeans, knowing nothing about life outside of a home with hot running water and electricity. Or high-tech fabrics that dry quickly instead of the moisture-soaking, potentially deadly effects of cotton.

“We would live in tents during the weeks that followed and I would build a strong bond with the other guys, who were mostly white but some black, but race didn’t seem to matter,” Williams said. “We were just young guys out for an adventure. Little did we know that the adventures we would experience would far exceed our wildest imagination.”

The challenges of the outdoors began right away.

July just got that much more awesome! What better way to celebrate 50 years of changing lives through challenge and discovery?

Make sure you stop by our 50th Anniversary School Store. We have been adding items. New this week is our 50th Anniversary Coffee Table Book full of photos and testimonials. Get one today and see if you made the cut! We will also be adding an art print in the next month. Stay tuned!