Let’s start from the beginning, when did you start going to camp?

I started going to camp when I was a Blazer, so I was maybe 11? I went with my friend Mary Claire during week one every summer and it was so fun. I remember my first cabin was Wyandot and I had two Brazilian counselors. And then I went every year after that. My final (torchbearer) year I was in Shoshone, and then in 2010 I was in CILT session one. I just always loved it.

Did you always want to be a camp counselor at Tecumseh?

I wasn’t the camper who was always like “I’m gonna be a counselor when I’m older”. I loved being at camp, but I don’t think I thought or even knew that working there would be an option. And then I loved being a CILT (Camper In Leadership Training) so much, and that’s when some counselors encouraged me to apply for day camp. So I applied, and was a day camp counselor in 2011 and 2012. I loved being with the younger kids, but I lived in Lake Village both of those summers and loved going back each night and being with the older kids, so then I knew I wanted to do Res. I ended up being an overnight counselor in 2013 and 2014.

You were spending your summers at Camp, did you already know you wanted to be a lawyer?

I think I was still trying to decide. I was a sociology major in college and for a long time I thought I would work at a nonprofit or some public interest type of career. Then throughout my sociology classes a lot of teachers were talking about how being a lawyer can be public interest if you go into certain fields. I started law school in 2017.

So what kind of law do you practice now?

I do plaintiffs antitrust law and the point of antitrust law is to promote competition between businesses in an industry. So when corporations start to get monopolies in certain areas, antitrust lawyers come in and sue the monopoly in hopes to break things up or make them change their business practices to foster better competition.

Are there any skills that you use in your career that you feel you can tie back to your time at Tecumseh?

Totally. A lot of the skills that make a good lawyer are either skills that I learned at camp or you have exposure to at camp, like working with other people. As a camp counselor, that’s a constant. You learn how to work with different personalities in such creative ways, all with the same goal of giving kids a good summer. Being a lawyer, there’s tons of that.

I’d also say that empathy is such a massive asset as a lawyer, and it’s not one that all lawyers have. You don’t learn it in law school, it’s something that I got to fine tune and put into practice at camp. Both as a camper, because that’s instilled in our campers so well, but also as a counselor. You’re meeting so many campers and counselors from different parts of the world and everyone has such a different upbringing. You can learn empathy in the “real world” but you don’t dive into it as quickly as you do at camp. It makes me a better lawyer for sure.

You recently joined the Tecumseh Society at Camp. What made you decide to join?

I’ve always wanted to get back involved with camp, but I didn’t know all the ways that I could. I was like, I probably can’t do it until I have something substantial to give. So when I was there for the 100th year celebration, someone talked about Tecumseh Society and I realized, I can definitely do like $10, or $20, or $30 a month, and that’s when I joined.

What would you tell someone who was considering applying to be a camp counselor?

I promise this is a summer well spent. It’s not just having fun in the pool, it’s more than that. During college, I didn’t do anything law related at all other than the pre-law classes, and I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I bring up Camp Tecumseh and my experience as a summer camp counselor multiple times a month in work settings. It’s something that brings people together even if you don’t have much to bond about. You’re going to have your whole life to do the stuff you need to do for your career, you can only be a camp counselor for a few summers. It is the most fun summer ever and the skills you learn are applicable in any career.

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Are you a member of the Tecumseh Society? We want to hear why you choose to give. Please reach out to Shelby Deakyne.