Find the Whip
By: Leah Kirstein
Updated: August 7, 2012
DUBOIS, CLEARFIELD COUNTY - Allison Rohaly sent her son, Alex Lemonides,9, to Pennsylvania Christian Camp at Blue Knob State Park, for the first time from July 28- August 4. Alex came home saying he had a great time, expect for when a game called "find the whip" was played.
"At first I didn't know if I could believe my son, but with the details he gave me and the more he talked about it the more I believed it and the angrier I got" said Rohaly.
"Whoever found the whip gets to chose who they whip and they whip them until they run to the wall and the others runaway or else they will get whipped" explains Alex.
Alex said a counselor he had not seen before created the game and the kids were put into three "villages".
The whip was a jump rope folded in half.
Within 15 minutes of the game being played another counselor put a stop to the game.
"I felt happy that I wasn't scared anymore, that we could move onto a different thing rather than this game" said Alex.
Camp President Joe Keefer told Your News Leader this game was not pre-approved and will not be played again. He further said they are in the processing of investigating what happened and that this is not the nature of the camp.
The camp has been serving the community for 50 years and Keefer does not want this one incident to make kids afraid of camp. He says the issue is not being ignored and they are speaking with the counselor who created the game Tuesday night. No one knew about the game before it was played.
Alex does say he wants to go back to camp because aside from the game it was a lot of fun meeting new friends.
