Lucky for all you faithful readers, someone gave me some very real inspiration this week....
I have done my best to pull from my memory the images of my stay there. It is hard for anyone to understand just what I saw though without actually seeing it though.
Another student made a trip into the middle of nowhere Thompson Falls, Montana and snooped to get these pictures.
When I first saw these pictures, I was absolutely stunned. Actually speechless. I'm not entirely sure why but my heart dropped. I think because I have spent the last eight years simply remembering what it looked like, when I saw actual pictures, recent pictures, it was a completely foreign experience. My heart started racing as I flipped through the photos. My hands were shaking and I actually started crying. I didn't really understand why I was crying, but I was.
It is hard for me to explain what I felt like. I definitely had a bit of an anxiety attack. Memories began flooding my head. Good, bad, everything. I felt paralyzed.
The phrase "a picture's worth a thousand words" has never rang so true to me before. I was thinking everything and nothing all at once. I just wanted to talk to someone but I had no idea what to talk about. I texted the first person I could think of who would be able to relate which was my best friend that came from the program. He helped me to work through the initial shock of it all and managed to make me feel a little better.
This may sound cliche or whatever but these photos honestly are the closest thing to a picture of how I see the part of me that is tormented by "the program." The place has been ripped to shreds. The grounds are unkept, there are things thrown everywhere, it is unclean and unloved.
As much as I am reminded that it is untrue, it feels like it is a reflection of myself.
So here are some of the pictures:
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| This is "The Court" where we spent our PE time in the mostly none freezing months. We also had an indoor gym that had a weight machine that we as girls were hardly allowed to use... My classroom was just off to the left of this picture. The building on the right was a boys classroom. I got to see inside that classroom once...when I managed to pass out during PE because I pushed myself to hard. At the very very right of this picture you can see another building, that was the only bathroom I can think of we were allowed to use if we were outside our cabin. We were never allowed to go alone and not allowed to use the bathroom for an hour I believe after any meals. |
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| This is what the cabins looked like. This one in particular is a boys cabin. If you remember me trying to explain what the cabins looked like in a previous post this will probably help. Buildings were split into four cabins. Each building was lettered A-D and cabins were numbered 1-4. So if this was my building, our cabin would have been the bottom left or "D3" Between the two bottom cabins there was an adjoining door in the main cabin and in the bathroom. |
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| These two photos (top and bottom) are the bathrooms inside the cabins. They obviously didn't look like this back then. Each bathroom had 3 stalls, 4 showers, and 3 sinks. I never really understood that...we had "hygiene shifts" of 4 people each... we had 5 minutes to shower and 5 minutes to dry, change, brush teeth, etc. If you took more than 5 minutes in the shower you lost points for the day, if you took more than 10 minutes in the bathroom you lost points for the day. If your "buddy" stepped out of the bathroom without you, you lost points for the day. |
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| This is our seminar building. The smaller door on the left is the entrance to the cafeteria section. This is where the "lifeboat" process took place, this is where I graduated high school, this is where my "prom" took place... |
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| This is the inside of the seminar building. During seminars chairs would be lined up with the backs to the left wall. Seeing this picture gave me so many chills. There are so many horrible memories associated with the seminars and this room. |
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| This picture isn't super important. Actually I never went here but I am pretty sure this is where our "confo bins" were. Basically it was a storage bin for things you came with you couldn't have until upper levels or out of season items you couldn't fit in your four baskets you were allowed to have. |
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| The building is our admin office. In the back of this building was the upper level classroom. Once you reached upper levels you had three days of class per week, the other three to four days were spent working. We had various jobs that ranged from simply working a family, which meant you followed them around all day making sure the students were following the rules, all the way up to "Shift Lead". Shift lead was the highest in rank you could be while in the program. I was shift lead for my shift for the last couple months before I graduated. I wrote the schedules, mediated, helped staff members. I was very trusted. It was a huge honor for me to be able to be the shift lead as that role was generally only given to a specific group of girls that were basically your typical "popular" girls. The barn on the right was our store. Once a week we got to go to the "store" for items such as shampoo, deodorant, a new toothbrush, and if you were a really good student, you got a candy bar! |
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| I believe this is one of the intervention rooms. I am not 100% sure as I don't remember this specific room but its the only room I can think of that would only have one desk in it. I'm not sure if I have explained what intervention is yet... Basically it was reserved for the worst of the worst students. Ones that couldn't be controlled by staff members. They put the student into a room with anywhere from one to three staff members as well as two junior staff (upper level students). We were forced to sit silent for at least 30 min. Any talking and our time would be extended. I spent a good amount of time in intervention as a lower level. I was so angry at the world, I was mad at myself, I just wanted everything to end. |
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| This is am pretty sure really is an intervention room. I think this is the boys intervention room though. This is the boys intervention room though. The girls intervention room with this horrid lavender color that just made you angrier the more you had to stare at those walls. Because of the time I spent in intervention as a lower level student, I became very good at calming students down as a junior staff member. Working intervention became a regular thing for me because for a few months I was the only one who could handle it. There were a couple nights I was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to help out with a student they couldn't control. |
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| Again I am fairly sure this is another intervention room. Sometimes students had to sleep in there overnight because they couldn't be trusted to go back to their families. This is what our mattresses looked like. Disgusting flowery things. Not even a little comfortable. They were reused over and over and over. |
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| Sundays we got to watch two movies. It was our "day off". We got to sleep in maybe an hour...and then we went to breakfast, cleaned until lunch, watched one movie after lunch, went to dinner, watched one movie after dinner, went to bed. We got to play games on Sundays and for the most part act like normal kids for once. |
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| Incident Report for staff members. Anytime something happened with a student, they were supposed to write up an incident report. I may or may not have caused a few incidents.... |
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| If memory serves me correctly....I believe this was the classroom for D1 and D2 (we shared a classroom with the cabin attached to us and alternated school sessions). The left side of this building is that bathroom I mentioned earlier. To the right of this photo is where that admin office and the "store" is. |
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| This is worksheets. If you got in trouble, often you came here.. not the kind of trouble that landed you in intervention though. This is boys worksheets. The girls one I'm pretty sure was that ugly purple.... Supposedly before I went there students actually had to do "worksheets" but eventually they just started making you do homework or listen to these horrible tapes about self improvement over and over and over... |
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| That generator you saw before is on the left here so this would be if your back was facing the classroom with the bathroom attached to it. This was the beginning of the four cabins, The first two were the boys cabins, the last two were the girls cabins. There was a fire pit somewhere in that grassy area too.., |
A part of me is deeply curious about this place now and wants to go back there and try to get some pictures for myself. Or at least see it. Someone is paying a security guard to watch the place but the guy who got these pictures managed to sneak around him to do some snooping. I think it would be an interesting adventure.
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ReplyDeleteMy heart goes out to you and your fellow students who attended Spring Creek “Lodge” long after my days there in the early 80's when it was called Spring Creek “Community” (SCC). In the 80’s, there was only the upper campus, with unfinished log cabins, the main office which was later added (the first building that you would come too on the dirt road). Occasionally we had events/sports in “The Meadow”. A real meadow, across Blue Slide Rd., towards the river, and there were absolutely no buildings. “The Meadow” apparently became the lower campus in your era. "Spring Creek” (SCC) was owned/run by Steve and Nancy Cawdrey. NEVER would they have dreamed of their school turning into this, with so many disturbed kids going back into the world with the horrific experiences I have read about. I know one student personally, Christina (Kirsten) that attended the “Lodge”, and she does not have many nice things to say about it except for the friends that she made there.
ReplyDeleteNever did Steve and Nancy control their efforts by taking away or giving out "points"! They may have sent some of the kids back into the world with some regrets, and some anger issues, but they turned a lot of lives around. I think it’s a CHOICE, how we interoperated the experience. I personally left SCC with strong morals and values, and the most valuable tools to deal with emotions, confrontations, and life’s disappointments. I learned how to “survive”.
When I arrived to the school (SCC), we were first required to go on the outward bound style program called “Survival”. It was 21 days of hell to pay, but well worth the benefits gained in this course. It was super challenging, it broke you down and surfaced all of your emotions, it brought you back up, and made you think about life, and what you want to do with it. At the time, you did not realize it, but you learned self respect! At that time a very special man named “Little John” ran the program.
A “Challenger” course followed this experience, which gave you self confidence, self worth, and an “I can do anything “attitude. Once completed, you were welcome on campus, where you were thankful for a shared log cabin with 10-12 girls and a bathroom with multiple stalls for showering. You were not timed or limited. Intervention was a “circle group” discussion with everyone at SCC. There was constructive criticism, structured therapy, and lots of LOVE!
Besides the Cawdrey’s and Little John, there were many other really talented counselors like Larry, Carmen, and Gay. Those of you who attended in the era, don’t need last names associated with those names to be able to recall.
I am sorry for the experiences that seem to still haunt you today. The school is closed now for a reason, because enough of you voiced your opinions and reported inappropriate discipline practices. I only hope that you can take my word for it, and believe that the more you talk about your experiences and the feelings that you have as they relate, the easier it will be to get past this stage, and “live”. Look for things that you got out of the experiences, like the friends you made, maybe some lessons that you now realize were underlying until now. Find the good (even if it’s only ONE good thing) with this experience and every experience in life, if you will. Sometimes it’s hard but you can always choose to let go, and reflect on the positive, FIND IT.
My prayers go out to you. May you find the way to release. Maybe visiting the property would be therapeutic for you, consider it.
Robyn
I went to both programs. They were both pretty bad, but at least Steve cared about the students in his misguided way. WWAPS is just pure evil. I am pretty ashamed at Steve for selling to them.
ReplyDeleteAt least they are closed - for now. Rumors speak of them trying to reopen the place and that is why it is important to remember what took place and how many dreams they shattered by the teenagers who went there. Lives that were lived to the potential the teenagers had before they went there. A lot of testimonies can be found on Tales from the black school
ReplyDeleteI am considering going back to this hell hole in attempts to gain closure of some sort.... I am haunted by these pictures. When i was in "the hobbit" it didnt have a mattress, just a hard bunk, no heat.
ReplyDeleteI went up there in May and took a mass amount of pictures. Spoke with the new owner about permission to do so and he was very accommodating. Let me know if you would like more pics.
ReplyDelete