Summer 2025 drew to a close 2 months ago, and we currently find ourselves surrounded by the colors of fall and the familiar icons of Halloween. Pumpkins, skeletons, witches, and werewolves may dominate the decorations on our front lawns, but we can’t help thinking about our summer home where the costumes we wear may not be as flashy as the ones we’ll don on October 31st, but still serve as artifacts of a summer well-lived.

Owegans wear costumes every day at camp. While the Fourth of July and Owegoween are popular occasions for dressing up, and Scotty’s Shows always delight with the colorful and creative attire worn onstage, there are opportunities sewn into the fabric of our ordinary daily routines that allow us to step into another skin. From the moment we open our eyes until lights-out, we wear a multitude of costumes. Here are just a few of the ones in which you can find us during the summer months:

1. Morning line-up often calls for the “sleepyhead” costume: flannel pajama bottoms and hoodie sweatshirt pulled up over the inevitable bedhead. Some bright-eyed and bushy-tailed campers arrive at morning line-up fully dressed for the day, while others eat their Fruit Loops and French toast sticks in a state of semi-hibernation. No Crocs, of course, because every Owegan knows that you wear sneakers in the dining hall!
2. We cherish the time spent in the HBC or on the Upper Field in our “intercamp” costumes: LOC pinnie or official, shorts, and whatever accessories that game calls for: shinguards and cleats for soccer, cool LOC headband optional. There’s nothing quite like spectating at the basketball court or baseball diamond and seeing that wave of blue and white!
3. On lake days, we wear our “waterfront” costume: bathing suit, Crocs or slides, beach towels slung around our necks, life jackets fastened securely around our torsos. We stand at the top of the Wibit, embodying King of the Lake mentality as we survey the scene below. Some of us accessorize with oars or paddles, while others skip the water altogether and opt for a fishing rod and Wellies.
4. The “Olympics” costume becomes a staple of every Owegan’s wardrobe. During Olympics, we wear our camp-provided t-shirt in our team’s color. The design changes every few years, the colors vary from time to time (shoutout to pastel pink and heather gray!), but the same Olympic rainbow of Brotherhood spreads across camp for 3 days every summer.
5. On Friday nights, Owegans don their “campfire” costumes. Current Tents proudly display their long-awaited Tent shirts, while Key Staff and counselors from Tent years past wear their slightly-worn shirts with a mixture of nostalgia and bravado. We line up and march to the campsite in our mandated longs and longs, Crazy Creeks tucked securely under our arms.

This is just the beginning of an extensive list of costumes associated with our time at Owego. If you’re lucky, you may even catch a glimpse of a human banana or hot dog while walking through Pioneer Village. We wear these costumes with our heads held high, knowing that they are part of a much larger tradition. With a great costume comes great responsibility. You must embody the sprit of an Owegan, not simply look the part. When we pull an official over our heads for an out-of-camp trip, or trek through the woods in longs and longs while gathering sticks for Rope Burn, we manifest the essence of all the Owegans who came before us.

Happy Halloween!