By Martin Brown, husband to Mary Kay Root, co-owner of Western Life Camp.
I first met Mary Kay in New Zealand when she came to stay with our family as a Rotary exchange student back in 1979. Mary Kay joined our family as my Rotary “sister”. Unbeknown to us both, as fate would have it, we are now married and living together in the Gallinas Canyon, just a stone’s throw from Western Life Camp.
Western Life Camp has long been a place where young people gain an appreciation for the outdoors. Mary spent her childhood summers at WLC hiking, horseback riding, swimming and gaining a deep appreciation for outdoor sports and Nature. Learning what to do when the power goes off or the road becomes impassable and you are snowed in for a few days are all important life skills on how to get by in the great outdoors (or suburbia) when the creature comforts of home are absent.
For me back in New Zealand as a youngster in my early teens I went hiking, camping in the bush with a friend and we were quite at home sleeping under the stars and hunting for our food cooking this over an open fire. We shot possums and rabbits with our slug guns and made terrible stews (because we never seemed to get all the pellets out) but we didn’t mind at all. We were just glad to be out there ‘doin it’. Outdoor experiences certainly install in one a confidence for the later years ahead as you discover the ‘can do – don’t mind’ capability. Yeah it can be wet and cold and you poured salt over your breakfast instead of sugar but so what. Cubs and Scouts were also the order of the day at home and these groups also helped round out our outdoor education.
During my later ‘teenhood’ my family In New Zealand were privileged to share camping, boating, diving, fishing and all manner of outdoor experiences that my home country has to offer with my then Rotary sister, Mary Kay. My parents ensured over time that their children would understand the value of the outdoors and for many years we travelled to the ‘Jack N Jill’, a public beach camp in the Bay of Islands.
Here our family met up with other family groups with whom we developed long term friendships lasting many years (one such family friend was Master of Ceremonies at our wedding which we held in New Zealand in the Bay of Islands in 2013).
Mary Kay and I went to high school together in New Zealand, we looked after each other in our teenage years and we always ‘just got along’. The upbringing of both our families, our experiences in understanding the great outdoors and the other folks you meet along the way I know has helped Mary Kay & I to develop, as my sister-in-law puts it in her blog, into “can do” adults.
As it turned out our respective New Mexico and New Zealand families both were familiar and grounded in being able to experience, respect and enjoy the values of understanding the natural environs.
Our families stayed in touch over the next three decades, and, feeling strong ties to my parents, Mary returned to New Zealand for my father’s 80th birthday and we were reunited, once again after 31 years now as mature adults. I came to visit New Mexico and her family’s ‘jewel in the crown’ reclusive Western Life Camp in 2011. Here the Root family offered outdoor experiences to many varied groups over the last 40 years. No wonder Mary and I got along so well back in the day as we were raised to respect the environment and become self-sufficient. Experiences that I believe is not sufficiently promoted today for our up and coming youth and our future societies will be poorer for it.
So some things never change, whether it is boating, fishing, diving, swimming or tramping in New Zealand or camping, tramping, fishing, hiking or swimming at Western Life in New Mexico, there is the opportunity to gain access to personal development for all ages that stand the test of time.
This is our personal story and testament to how important disconnecting from the grid and reconnecting with friends and family can be life changing and beneficial. It illustrates how long lasting relationships and friends can be developed and maintained through such a facility as Western Life Camp.
Today Western Life Camp has many repeat family reunion groups, church retreats, sports groups and we often meet folks who attended WLC as youngsters and come up to reminesce about their past experiences.
I think my New Mexico sister-in-law expresses my feelings about coming to Western Life Camp and Mary and my life time experience has been “become part of who you are and who you will become”, come visit us.