Iwas at least an hour and a half into my conversation with June Goforth when I joked that she hadn’t given me a chance to ask any questions. She paused a moment before laughing and said, “Oh, I didn’t know you had questions.”

I had sat down with Goforth to talk about Camp Margaret Townsend , a Girl Scout camp that was a summer home away from home for hundreds of girls between 1925 and 1959. Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont now occupies the site in Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Townsend.

Goforth, one of those people whom former campers recall with great fondness, had no shortage of memories to share. She started attending the camp as a child in “1943-ish,” working her way up to be a counselor-in-training and eventually a counselor. As a college student, Goforth was

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