Events and News

Spy Profile: Captain Andrew of Echo Hill | Echo Hill's Miss Honey Hangs up Her Full Time Apron
Saving the Buy Boat Annie D | Field Guide: Farmville | 3rd Annual Dragonfly Camp | On the Annie D.
Twilight Article


Boat Birthday Party Highlights

Echo Hill’s Miss Honey Hangs Up Her Full Time Apron
by John Mann for The Chestertown Spy
October 24, 2010

For the better part of four decades, Catherine Ann Murray has prepared meals for a dining hall full of hungry children and adults at Echo Hill Outdoor School and Echo Hill Camp. Better known as “Miss Honey,” she has mastered the art of cooking comfort food for up to 200 people at each meal. Over the years, she’s introduced thousands to her famous fried chicken and cornbread. Now, she’s ready to hang up her apron. Mostly. While Honey will be retiring from her everyday schedule, she’ll still appear in the kitchen to help out from time to time. After all this time Echo Hill is very much her home and its inhabitants have become her extended family.

On October 27th, members of both the Echo Hill Outdoor School and Echo Hill Camp communities will honor Miss Honey for her years of service. It’s fitting that Landon School, which is one of the Outdoor School’s longest attending schools, will be present for the celebration.
Read complete article on The Chestertown Spy.

Those wanting to wish Miss Honey a happy retirement could send mail to:

Echo Hill Outdoor School
c/o Miss Honey
13655 Bloomingneck Rd.
Worton, MD 21678
info@ehos.org

Spy Profile: Captain Andrew of Echo Hill
By Dave Wheelan of The Chestertown Spy
September 1, 2010

It’s fairly certain that Kurt Hahn, the 19th century founder of outdoor education, would be mighty pleased with Andrew McCown’s 32 years of work at Echo Hill Outdoor School. It was Hahn’s fundamental task as an educator, he said, “to insure the survival of these qualities: an enterprising curiosity, an undefeatable spirit, tenacity in pursuit, readiness for sensible self denial, and above all, compassion.” Following in Khan’s footsteps, each year, Captain Andy takes command of the 40-foot skipjack Elsworth, with a crew of six young people on each trip, to do just that. Without ipods, mobile phones, television, computer games or helicopter parents, his students rediscover their inner core strengths as well as the hidden beauty of the Chesapeake Bay.

 

Saving the Buy Boat Annie D
August 20, 2010

Echo Hill Outdoor School in Kent County, Maryland, is proud to announce that it has received two major grants to rehabilitate their teaching vessel, the Buy Boat Annie D. The Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and the National Trust for Historic Preservation through the Bartus Trew Providence Preservation Fund will provide partial funding for this historic boat to receive a new shaft log, horn timber, cabin, and pilothouse. Matching funds for the project will be provided by Echo Hill Outdoor School. When the work is completed during the fall, the Annie D. will look much as it did when it was built in 1957 but it will be able to remain in use for education and historic tourism for at least the next 25 years.

In the heyday of the oyster industry, hundreds of buy boats were used to “buy” oysters off the sailing skipjacks. In addition to transporting oysters, they regularly hauled lumber and produce across the bay in the summer months. The buy boat Annie D. was built in Deltaville, VA in 1957, and was acquired by Echo Hill Outdoor School in 1984. The boat is now a familiar sight in the Chester River every spring and summer as children from around the region embark for 5-day trips to fish, crab, swim, explore, and meet local watermen, artists, musicians, and farmers.

Thanks to the Maryland Heritage Areas Authority and the Bartus Trew Providence Preservation Fund at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Buy Boat Annie D. will continue to be a significant historic and cultural resource for children as they explore the bay with Echo Hill Outdoor School.

For more information about Echo Hill Outdoor School and its historic boats, visit www.ehos.org and click on Historic Boats.

Field Guide: Farmville
September 7, 2010

Mystery Tour is one of my favorite classes to teach at Echo Hill Outdoor School. This class, which is open-ended by design, usually involves exploring some aspect of life in Kent County.
Read complete article on The Chestertown Spy.

3rd Annual Dragonfly Camp
August 9, 2010

The third annual Dragonfly Heart Camp took place last week at Echo Hill Outdoor School. Thirty campers with pulmonary hypertension who’ve had heart and/or lung transplants joined a team of doctors, nurses, and counselors from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for a week of bonding, team-building, and outdoor exploration facilitated by the Outdoor School teachers. This year’s group was the largest yet for a Dragonfly Heart Camp.
Read complete article on The Chestertown Spy.

On the Annie D.
by Wendy Costa for Chesapeake Bay Magazine
April 1, 2010

I wake up to the boat roacking and pots and pans clanking. My watch says it's 4:30 a.m. Watermen are getting out on the Chester River early today. I turn over in my sleeping bag on the hard floor of the pilothouse (a gel mat provides a little cushion for my 58-year-old bones). My 24-year-old first mate, Nathan, is a foot away, asleep with earplugs in his ears to keep out my annoying snoring.
Download PDF of complete article.

Twilight article
March 6, 2010

March is here. A co-worker told me he spotted an osprey the other day. A few optimistic buds have emerged. Spring isn’t quite here yet, but these signs tell us that warmer days will be here soon.
Read complete article on The Chestertown Spy.

 

 

Archived Articles

Walter and Dolly Harris article (PDF)

Kent County Students article (PDF) - October 12, 2009

Community Paddle a Success article (PDF) - September 21, 2009, by: John Mann

Echo Hill Outdoor School (PDF) - Chesapeake Times, March 2009

Echo Hill Outdoor School aims to connect its students with nature - Middletown Transcript, January 15, 2009

Learning Life's Lessons In The Great Outdoors (PDF) - Washington College Magazine, Fall 1992