Don’t you just love happy coincidences? I know I do, especially when one coincidence connects to another that connects to another – like some kind of coincidence chain reaction, perhaps even worthy of a Guinness World Record. In this case, it’s the number of people who graduated from the same St. Louis-area high school between 1989 and 1998 and became directors and/or assistant directors at Jewish overnight camps.

OK, so maybe it’s not exactly Guinness World Record material, but be a sport and go with me here.

This happy coincidence started when Aaron Hadley and Kim Holtzman Sloan got to talking at a Jewish camp conference both were attending in Chicago last month. Hadley is the director of Camp Ben Frankel in Makanda, Ill., a Jewish overnight camp about two hours from St. Louis, and Sloan is director of Camp Sabra, the overnight camp run by the Jewish Community Center of St. Louis.

As they talked, the two realize they had both graduated from Parkway North High School. Hadley, 47, was part of the Class of 1994 and Sloan, 50, was the Class of 1992. Despite being only two grades apart, they didn’t know each other in high school, or that the other had even attended Parkway North.

“I was like, ‘Wait, you’re Parkway North? I’m Parkway North,” Sloan recalled. “Then I was like Randy Comensky, whose nickname is Grizz, was Parkway North and my associate director (Lisa Deutsch) was Parkway North (both graduated in 1989). And Aaron was like Brian Mitchell was Parkway North (Class of ’95) and Mitch Morgan (Class of ‘98). We started laughing and it was like, what is happening?”

Added Hadley: “We realized that there are at least six Jewish camp directors or assistant directors who attended Parkway North. That’s a pretty outsized representation in the Jewish camping world — especially all from one St. Louis high school.”

I agreed and immediately deployed my best investigative reporter skills to get to the bottom of this phenomenon. With the help of Morgan, who lives in St. Louis but is co-owner and director of Camp Kingswood in Maine, we uncovered two more to add to the list – Morgan’s younger brother Sean, who spent much of his career as a Jewish overnight camp professional and is now COO at the University of Michigan Hillel, and Seth Toybes, a 20-plus year director at Wilshire Boulevard Temple Camps in Malibu, Calif., which run two separate overnight camps.

As I dug deeper, I got to thinking: What was in the water at Parkway North that led at least eight graduates to director jobs at Jewish overnight camp? How did they even know it was an option? Where did it all begin? What was in the water at Parkway North?

The “where,” as it turns out, is Camp Sabra, which most of these directors attended for years as campers. No big surprise that many people who have careers in Jewish camping usually are products of them. But to hear these folks talk about their Sabra experiences you’d think the place was Shangri-la.

Kim Holtzman Sloan – ’92

“There was this draw, there was something about summers at Sabra that were just so magical, and it never left me,” said Sloan. “I remember when Facebook came out, the very first people I went searching for were my counselors.”

Sloan worked in Los Angeles for 16 years as a TV casting director before she and her husband decided to return to the Midwest. When she learned Sabra was hiring an assistant director of camper improvement and retention, she applied for the job and started two months later. That was November 2013. In 2022, she became the camp’s director.

“There is just something about the community of Sabra where you can be someplace and meet someone and find out that their cousin, brother, whoever went to Sabra, and you immediately have a connection,” she said. “It’s pretty spectacular.”

Mitch Morgan – ‘98

Morgan, 44, agrees wholeheartedly, adding that Jewish overnight camp not only helped shape him as an individual but also solidified his connection to Judaism. He is sure many of his counterparts feel the same way.

“Jewish camp, when it is doing things right, can be a little cultish in the best way possible. It’s come with us and be part of something,” he said. “If you were to ask me where I belong, I would say I belong to the Jewish Camp Synagogue.”

Aaron Hadley – ’94

For some, like Hadley, Jewish overnight camp is in their DNA. His grandparents co-founded Camp Ben Frankel and his mother spent summers there growing up. He jokes that he tried to major in summer camp at the University of Arizona; unfortunately, such a major did not exist.

He worked at a few Jewish overnight camps and non-profits before returning to the St. Louis area in 2017 when he heard Camp Ben Frankel was about to close. “We convinced the board (of the camp) to give our plan a shot and keep it open and that’s been working ever since,” he said.

Lisa Deutsch – ’89

Deutsch, 53, has worked at Camp Sabra since 2017 and is now its associate director of community care. She mentions the generational pull Sabra not only has on her, but also on her four children, two of whom will be counselors there this summer. Her dad went to Camp Hawthorn, the predecessor to Sabra. Deutsch assumes that “the next generation” of her family will also attend Camp Sabra.

While she spent six summers at Sabra as a camper and knows firsthand how her experiences there helped shape her, she delights in being able to impact others in her current position.

“I love being a part of Sabra now because while there are hard moments, I feel I am helping to let these kids and staff members grow in so many ways. It is extremely rewarding work.”

And yes, it is work. And sacrifice. Despite being able to spend their summers in idyllic settings, being a camp director is a year-round job and for several months, it often means being away from family.

Randy Comensky – ’89

Comensky knows that better than most. He spent 20 years in various capacities at Sabra, moving from camper to counselor to unit head to assistant director to director. After multi-year director stints at Jewish camps in Buffalo, N.Y., Houston and Detroit, he’s been assistant director of operations for the past three years at Camp Interlocken, a Jewish overnight summer camp in Wisconsin.

He says work as a camp director, “is 100% your life.” The job not only involves being at camp 24/7 during the summer months, but in the “off season” recruiting campers and staff, strategic planning, budgeting, fundraising, ordering, facilities maintenance and much more.

“I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years so I’ve learned how to manage, but for sure the first couple of years can be a struggle to find happiness between your family life, personal life and your camp life. That is a challenge,” said Comensky, 53, who is married with two teenagers. “If I hadn’t been able to find that balance, I probably would have gotten out of camping.”

Brian Mitchell – ’95

After years of working at Jewish overnight camps, including as an assistant director at Sabra, Brian Mitchell, 46, is taking a break. These days, he’s supervising kid’s programming and day camp at a local health club in Scottsdale, Ariz. where he lives with his wife and 9-month-old daughter.

“I’m a product of Jewish overnight summer camp. I learned more in the one month I spent at camp than I probably did nine months of the year in school — things like gaining independence, learning to figure things out on my own and experiencing Judaism in a way that was very different than religious school,” said Mitchell. “But with a family and responsibilities at home, it’s hard for me to be away for two to three months. As my daughter grows and if she’s interested in attending overnight summer camp, maybe I can find a position where that would work.”

Camp can be a life

No question there are sacrifices in this line of work, maybe more so than other jobs. But perhaps Comensky summed it up best when he said, “While camp definitely impacts families because it takes a lot of you, and a fair amount of time away, the rewards are incredible.

“More than anything though, it’s seeing a smile on a kid’s face when you know that you made a difference. It’s really something.”