Remembering Bill Old

(1938 – 2023)

With heavy hearts, we share the news that former Kabeyun director Bill Old died in Virginia in January 2023. As director from 1963 to 1969, Bill provided a calm and steady hand on the tiller during a challenging time for Kabeyun.

Bill first came to camp as a swimming counselor in the mid-1950's when he was a student and captain of the swim team at the Virginia Military Institute. Long-time staff members Jeff Keubler and Bill French both were campers and counselors during Bill Old’s two stints at Kabeyun and remained friends with him for decades.

Both describe Bill as graceful, in his personal interactions and as a swimmer.

“His strokes were effortless. I’d never seen anything like it,” Jeff says. “He would dive off the swimming dock ̶  you could do that back in those days  ̶  and it looked like he would just float in the air and enter the water halfway to the crib. It was beautiful."

After graduation, Bill joined the Army and was deployed to Korea. He returned to Kabeyun as camp’s director in 1963 after founder John Porter had heart trouble. While John remained very involved as director emeritus, Bill took over day-to-day operations and gracefully navigated the transition to a new era.

“Bill was very friendly with John and Anna [Newton Porter],” says Bill French. “They got along well, and he was able to handle the interventions when, from time to time, John Porter would say, ‘I think we should do it this way.’”

Jeff and Bill both remember the former director as “very fair” and “firm.”

“Bill had been in the army, so he could be tough, strict at times,” says Jeff. “But there were more pranks in those days, and he was very tolerant of that.”

After Kabeyun, Bill had a long career in financial planning. He loved singing, participating in choirs throughout his life. He also loved sailing. He and his wife Susie lived aboard a 38-foot sailboat for a year while their two sons were young. Later, they kept a 46-foot sloop in the Caribbean and spent weeks of every year sailing there. In addition to Susie and sons Hunter and Christopher (both former Kabeyun campers), Bill is survived by five grandchildren and a nephew.