NEW SCOTLAND — The family of William N. James, who was known at Camp Pinnacle as “Chief,” is holding a memorial service, smorgasbord, and tree-planting on June 20 at the camp in James’s honor.

James, who died in December 2014, worked as Camp Pinnacle’s director from 1969 to 1982, when he left to serve with Global Outreach Mission.

“He definitely had an evangelist’s heart,” said the camp’s part-time secretary, Marion Leggett. “He was concerned about people. He wanted them to know where they stood as far as their beliefs. He said what he thought. He didn’t water anything down, but he always had a twinkle in his eye, and he just loved the ministry.”

Leggett said that James’s family was also involved in camp, and that they know many of the old staff members still live in this area.

The camp’s current executive director, David Clinansmith, said that he worked at the camp when James was in charge.

“I knew Bill very well,” Clinansmith said. The staff, particularly Leggett, have assisted the James family with the June program at the camp, he said.

“His family wanted to have a memorial there,” Leggett said.

Regular weekend events were part of James’s leadership, she said.

“Every Saturday night, we had a concert and a smorgasbord,” she said. Sundays at camp included a turkey dinner, she said.

The family wanted to re-enact the Saturday smorgasbords, Leggett said.

“There is no charge. The family’s inviting everyone. The camp is providing it,” she said. “People don’t have to bring anything.”

James’s tenure at the camp covered adult events and children’s programming, she said. James hired speakers — sometimes flying them in from as far as California — and trained staff, she said.

“I was one of those staff in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” Leggett said. “He just taught us so much.”

Leggett, who now serves as a secretary at the camp, said that she prefers the term “secretary” to “administrative assistant.”

Secretary, with its roots in Latin, means “keeper of the secrets, and it implies trust,” Leggett said. “I like ‘secretary’ because I know what it means.” 

Local churches, like St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Altamont; the First Baptist Church in Westerlo; and the First Presbyterian Church in Schenectady send children to the ecumenical summer camp programs at Camp Pinnacle, Leggett said. Groups also rent the facility year-round for camp retreats, she said.

The camp has 880 acres just outside John Boyd Thacher State Park.

“We’re one of the few camps that have horses,” Leggett said. In addition to horseback riding, the camp offers paint ball, skateboards, and canoeing on its ponds.

At the James memorial, visitors will meet in the tabernacle — a big barn where camp services are held — and then move outdoors to plant a maple tree in James’s honor.

Leggett said that the tree is a symbolic replacement of the trees James had to remove from the camp as it grew under his leadership. A longtime volunteer during James’s time there, now deceased, planted “almost all the trees” in her time at Camp Pinnacle before she died at age 104, Leggett said.

The event is free, but any donations received will be put toward a campership fund named after another longtime camp worker, Janet Truax, Leggett said.

“It’s to help underprivileged kids come to camp,” she said. The fund was important to Truax, Leggett said, so it was renamed for her after Truax died.

The camp staff and the James family will begin the event at 1 p.m. with hors d’oeuvres and visiting in the camp dining room. They will hold the service at the tabernacle at 2:30 p.m., and the smorgasbord at 4:30 p.m. Those who wish to attend the smorgasbord should call 872-9100 to be counted, Leggett said.

“We have no idea,” Leggett said, of the number of people who will attend. “He’s been gone a long time,” she said. “I’m hoping there will be around 100 people. We’re also offering overnight accommodation” for those traveling to camp for the memorial, Leggett said.

“We want to help the family as much as we can,” she said.