100 Plast youths participate in 50th anniversary ski camp (02/08/98)

100 Plast youths participate in 50th anniversary ski camp

by Yaro Bihun

GLENS FALLS, N.Y. - One hundred Ukrainian American youths spent the week between Christmas and New Year's Day skiing in the Adirondacks, renewing old friendships and making new friends at the annual ski camp organized by the "Burlaky" fraternity of the Plast Ukrainian Youth Organization.

Almost all of the teenagers came from East Coast states, from Massachusetts to Virginia; more than half were from New Jersey, with New York and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) providing most of the rest.

They were cared for by a 30-member counselors' corps, headed by senior plastun Andrey Hankewycz, a member of the "Khrestonostsi" fraternity, from Yonkers, N.Y., as camp director, and senior plastun George Danyliw, a member of the "Burlaky," from Southhampton, Pa., as administrator.

The camp program kept the young Plast members busy from before sunrise, with reveille at 6 a.m., to lights-out at 10 p.m. It included a full day of skiing - and the increasingly popular sport of snowboarding - with instruction on Gore Mountain, near Lake George, and evenings of get-togethers, games and contests, as well as lectures at the camp headquarters at the Landmark Motor Lodge in Glens Falls. The youngsters could also swim in the hotel's indoor pool or relax in the jacuzzi.

One evening, the camp was bussed to the Glens Falls arena to see the local minor league professional hockey team, the Red Wings, defeat (3-1) the Americans from Rochester. And on Sunday evening, the Rev. Markian Kostyk of Amsterdam, N.Y., came to celebrate liturgy for the campers.

During the week, 17 campers received merit badges in skiing, and some 30 were honored in the "Krasnomovnist" contest, testing not only their Ukrainian-language skills but their ability to think quickly and improvize as well.

The most popular evening activity came on the last evening of the camp, when the counselors put on the traditional "Mykolaiko" skit that includes St. Nicholas and his entourage of angels and devils, and the campers select the most popular boy and girl among them, whom they call "snizhynka" (snowflake) and "snihovyi did" (old man winter). This year's honorees were Alexandra Kachala, 12, of Locust, N.J., and Daniel Krup, 16, of Stamford, Conn.

This was the 50th anniversary of the ski camp organized by the "Burlaky" fraternity. Their first ski camp was held in the Bavarian Alps in 1947. It also marked the 20th anniversary of the camp's activities in this part of the Adirondack Mountains, north of Albany.

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