Camp Dragon 2025
This past October, DES 5th Grade Students had the opportunity to apply to attend the 10th Annual DES Family Camp Out - Camp Dragon, held at the AGFC Potlatch Nature
Center at Cooks Lake in Casscoe, AR. 12 boys and 12 girls were selected from over 30 applications.
Camp Dragon took place October 24th & October 25th, 2025.
The students got to experience setting up camp, including their own tents. Cooking over a campfire and more!
AGFC Educators Lori Bailey and Wil Hafner welcomed the students to Cooks Lake before the tent set up began. After camp was set up the students learned all about Duck Migration from Jay Hitchcock, with the US Fish & Wildlife. They then had the opportunity to release banded Wood Ducks onto Cooks Lake.
The students then were able to cook a hot dog lunch over the campfire and had the opportunity to make cinnamon rolls on a stick.
After lunch, Adam Davis, owner of BG Calls, talked to the students about duck hunting, duck stamps and duck calls. Each student had the opportunity to make their own duck call, donated by BG Calls.
Wil Hafner led the students in creating duck lanyards to hold their calls.
In the theme of ducks, Joli Holzhauer, DES Art Teacher led the students in a class on painting realistic duck decoys. Teaching the students to repaint and reuse old, but still viable duck decoys is part of our emphasis on Conservation Education. Teaching students and families to repaint and reuse what they have instead of buying new. Wil Hafner & Lori Bailey also emphasized that if people still wanted to get rid of old decoys, instead of throwing them away, they could donate them to the center and they would get them to students who could use them but may not be able to purchase their own.
After we finished with all of our duck related lessons, Anna Claire Beaton, DMS 7th Grader and a member of the AGFC Generation Conservation Youth Council, and Lori Bailey, taught the students how to make paracord safety bracelets. Anna Claire taught them the different uses for the paracord, the flint and the whistle that were all part of the bracelet design.
Soon it was dinner time. We ate a traditional camp dinner of walking tacos!
After dinner we went back into the classroom to learn about ALAN Light (Artificial Light at Night) and the impact it has on both humans and wildlife, taught by US Army Corps of Engineers Ranger Aaron Boswell. The students then learned about the night sky, stars and constellations led by Nathan Windel, the Outdoor Education Specialist with the Arkansas Department of Education. After learning inside, the students were able to go on a night hike to observe the sky at night.
After the hike we came back to the campfire where we roasted marshmallows for smores and then told ghost stories before going to bed.
On Saturday morning breakfast was cooked by several of the camp dads and then it was time for Outdoor First Aid led by Billie Ullrich and Paul Humphries. After their lesson in the classroom they went outside and participated in a rescue scenario. In the scenario the persons injured had fallen out of a tree stand because they were not properly harnessed into the tree. The students had to assess the situation, bandage wounds, brace legs and arms and move them to safety.
We finished up the camp with a family scavenger hunt before cleaning up, packing up and heading home!
DES Camp Dragon is led and organized by Mrs. Lindsay Beaton and assisted by Mrs. Holly Sloan. We also had 4 Jr Camp Staffers - Anna Claire Beaton, Charlotte Clark-Tow, Maddox Holzhauer and Sawyer Jones. The junior staffers helped with all set up, take down, the logistics of camp as well as being the "injured victims" of the tree stand accident.
Follow this link to access the Camp Video: Camp Dragon 2025