Saturday, July 31, 2010

Walter Margetts

Today Walter Margetts was posthumously elected to the Frost Valley Hall of Fame, joining Woody English, Halbe Brown, Eva Gottscho and several others. Walter's son Tom and daughter Cynthia - and other members of the Margetts family - were here today to help us celebrate. In this video clip, Fenn Putman presents a plaque to Tom and Cynthia. Earlier Fenn had given a biographical profile of Walter Margetts' accomplishments. He was Julius Forstmann's attorney and he was at the same time very active with the YMCA of New Jersey and it was he--Walter--who put the two together when the Forstmann family was looking possibly to sell the Catskills estate and when Camp Wawayanda was urgently looking for a more spacious home than their then-current temporary site (at Johnsonsburg, at a property owned by Stevens Institute). [By the way, several of our current staff started their camping careers at the camp that is now at the Stevens Institute site, including Stu Alexander and Jess Gonzalez.]

Below is a shot of members of the Margetts family who were in attendance on this special day.