Baylor University’s Camp Success celebrated a new milestone of, well, success Thursday, and now the camp’s seven-year run of achievement is sparking talk of making it a statewide program.

Begun in 2003, Camp Success is an intensive four-week language and literacy therapy camp for area children, run by Michaela Ritter, associate chair of the department of communication sciences and disorders at Baylor. Baylor faculty and graduate students work one-on-one and in small groups with the kids, nearly all of whom have demonstrated remarkable reading and speech improvement as a result of their work at the camp.

The 80 students who graduated Thursday from this year’s camp put the total number of graduates at more than 500. Baylor faculty and graduate students also continue to work with local kids throughout the school year and have helped more than 1,000 children through that arm of the program.

Camp Success graduates (from left) Kristopher Pearce, 10; Stephen Parker, 8; Benson Offit, 7; and Logan Mynar, 7, check out the medals camp graduates received Thursday during their graduation ceremony at Waco Scottish Rite's Lee Lockwood Library and Museum. (Duane A. Laverty photo)

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Michaela Ritter, director of Baylor University's Camp Success, talks with camp graduate Maryann Morgan, 9, before Thursday's ceremony. The Scottish Rite funds the program and is discussing a partnership with Baylor to endow it on a statewide level. (Duane A. Laverty photo)

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“Most kids make from one to three years’ progress (during the camp), so it’s absolutely the best,” Ritter said.

Relatives of Camp Success graduates are overjoyed with their kids’ or grandkids’ achievement.

“I can’t really put into words the impact it has made and the growth that has taken place,” said Baylor Department of Public Safety chief Jim Doak, whose grandson participated in Camp Success the past two years. “We were fortunate to be here (last year) and coming back this year, it’s like a flower that’s opening up. In our home, the last couple nights, we’ve had tears of joy from watching and listening to this expansion of vocabulary and comprehension.”

Baylor marketing professor Charles S. “Stan” Madden, a member of Waco Scottish Rite for 25 years, said he has “seen amazing things” out of his granddaughter since her participation in this year’s program and “an explosion in verbal skills” during the past year.

Waco Scottish Rite has funded the program since its inception, and the $82,000 grant to fund this year’s work puts the total Scottish Rite funding at $460,000 over the seven years, according to Waco Scottish Rite spokesman Claude Irvin.

There are “serious discussions” about the possibility of Scottish Rite endowing the Camp Success program — which has had a waiting list of more than 200 kids locally each year for the past few years — and holding camps statewide, Irvin said.

“That’s a dream and a future vision, and if we were to do that, it would be a joint partnership between the university and the Scottish Rite,” Irvin said.

Madden said the State of Texas Scottish Rite “has picked up on this and wants to continue it around Texas. They want to put Baylor and Dr. Ritter into connection with the Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas, and that’s going to be the base point for selecting sites for it. It’s a big deal.”

Ritter said that having the program endowed and expanded is a goal of hers, particularly with so many kids on the waiting list, but she said the fruits of Camp Success’ labor will spread throughout the state regardless.

“This semester, we have 31 graduate students, and they are working with two children each while they’re here,” Ritter said. “But the greatest part is that, when they graduate, they’re going to go out and work in schools and hospitals and rehab and use the same kind of treatment for kids.”

twoods@wacotrib.com

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