A picture of a bucking horse still graces the page of the International Pathfinder Camporee’s website, inviting 50,000 Pathfinders to Gillette to “explore the story of Elijah and discover what it means to stand strong in your faith.”
But the Camporee will not be returning in 2029 to the $1.6 million amphitheater Cam-Plex built for the 2024 and 2029 events. The organization has just announced it is returning to its original home in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 2029. In doing so, it forfeits a $125,000 deposit for the 2029 year.
The International Pathfinder Camporee is put on every four to five years by the Seventh Day Adventist Church for its youths. It is larger than the National Finals High School Rodeo and is akin to a large Boy or Girl Scout event.
“While the 2024 ‘Believe the Promise’ Camporee out west in Gillette, Wyoming was a phenomenal, unforgettable experience, there is a distinct joy in returning to our roots,” a statement on the group’s webpage says. “Oshkosh is the place where the international camporee dream truly matured into a worldwide event, and we cannot wait for a brand-new generation of Pathfinders to experience this.”
The Oshkosh venue has been expanded, Camporee officials said. And the event also has a new executive director. Pastor Pedro Perez succeeds Ron Whitehead, who led the event for 29 years.
Calls to the Camporee organization were not returned by the time of this article’s posting.
‘A Lot Of People Not Excited’
The fact Camporee is returning to its previous — but now expanded — home has raised many questions in the Gillette community, Cam-Plex Executive Director Aaron Lyles acknowledged.
There are also “a lot of people in Gillette who were not excited to incur the costs” that would have come with Camporee 2029, he added. Those costs would potentially include the sheriff’s office, fire department and public works.
Whether Wyoming wind contributed to the group’s decision to return to Wisconsin isn’t known, Lyles said, adding their reasons aren’t his to tell.
Severe weather did cause event organizers to cut the 2024 Camporee short. Torrential thunderstorms downed tents and flooded sleeping bags. Along with lightning, that forced tens of thousands of the 60,000 campers to take shelter in outlying buildings and barns.
Lyles said he had mixed feelings about the announcement Camporee wouldn’t return.
“Some part of me laments the fact that now we’ve seen it, we really could have affected a lot of positive changes in the second time around,” he said. “But, at the same time, it would have still cost (money). I think the taxpayers are actually further ahead than where we would have been otherwise.”
Already A Done Deal
Lyles said the contract to build an amphitheater for Camporee was already signed when he came on board, and not necessarily structured the way he would have liked.
“My job was to execute this event,” he said. “Whether I like it or whether I don’t like it, those sentiments don’t matter. We made promises, or someone before me made a whole lot of promises.”
Those promises included construction of the $1.6 million amphitheater. There was also subsequent auxiliary infrastructure, which Lyles said brought the total to $1.84 million.
County Commission Chairman Bob Jordan said the total was $2.2 million in a Facebook post, but did not respond to questions from Cowboy State Daily about the discrepancy in costs.
Lyles said it is plausible that the county had expenses of its own to meet that he would not be privy to.
“I can affirm that Cam-Plex capital investment did not exceed the amount the city/county/Cam-Plex had landed on prior to me coming to Gillette,” he said. “It actually worked out to get all of it in what was originally et up for back in the 2021 timeframe."
Cam-Plex will retain the amphitheater, Lyles said, and it has already been used for other events, such as Cirque Ma'Ceo, a three-tent traveling circus.
The event site doesn’t require a lot of maintenance, and Lyles said he believes other events will also want to use it.
“It’s a 30-acre open field that has good power and data,” he said. “That leaves us a lot of flexibility to rent it … so we’re going to use that site as an activated site for community programming.”
Lyles has asked Camporee officials if they would consider donating the nearby lot, which the organization purchased for parking.
'Off The Rails’
Jordan is among those glad to see that Camporee 2029 won’t be in Gillette after all.
On Facebook, the Campbell County Commission Chairman posted that “it turned out as it should have, both parties coming to an agreement to part ways.”
“(That) will cover about 5% of the $2.2 million dollars we (taxpayers) put into the amphitheater we built (with irrigation) special purpose for them at the Camporee,” Jordan wrote.
Jordan also wrote that he’s not against the Cam-Plex itself, which has been a “huge benefit to our community,” but suggested things had gone "off the rails."
“Our community at the time needed a new fairgrounds, a location that could host local events, bring a culture to a hard-working, blue-collar community,” he said. “Where did it go off the rails? The day it began to benefit a few at the expense of the many.”
Jordan added there are still advocates of the idea that a premier event center would put Gillette on the map and serve as an economic driver for sports and tourism.
“There will always be a debate on this logic,” he wrote. “I stay out of this debate since I just simply don’t care whose pockets it fills (restaurants, hotels). What I do care about is the taxpayer ending up with the bill to benefit a few on the pretense it benefits the whole.”
Jordan added that he will oppose any special elections that attempt to spend more money on building out Cam-Plex.
$425K Revenue, $2.2M Costs
Revenue-wise, the Camporee event collected $425,000 in direct payments from event organizers, including the forfeited $125,000 deposit for 2029, Lyles said.
“I wouldn’t have done it necessarily this way,” he said. “But the people who agreed to this did so on the premise it was going to be an economic development driver. So the rental — the charges — were never meant to be a dollar-for-dollar, paid-cash offset.”
Predecessors projected the event would lead to $40 million spent in the community, Lyles said. But sales taxes specifically related to the event are difficult to isolate.
“If you look at just sales tax receipts alone, it would show that was flat or down for the period of time,” he said. “But the reality is if the mines aren’t buying big, heavy, mining equipment, which is where the sales tax in our community really comes from, then (Camporee sales taxes) would get buried inside this larger narrative.”
Lyles added that predictions the event would overrun the town led to Camporee officials urging people to stay on the grounds. Meanwhile, many people left town, anticipating problems.
“It became a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Lyles said. “All these months and years, Camporee had been telling people, ‘Stock your shelves, we’re going to overrun you.’ And then, in the 11th hour, nobody went out.”
Gillette was, if anything, quieter than normal, Lyles said.
“The locals left town,” he said. “So it was a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy of the fear of something controlling its outcome.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
