Band camp faculty concert set for June 25 at Camp Batawagama
Camp Batawagama’s faculty concert was set for a June 25 evening at 909 Pentoga Trail, giving Iron County families a live look at the camp’s summer music tradition.
The Iron County Economic Chamber Alliance calendar placed Camp Batawagama’s Band Camp Faculty Concert on June 25, with a 7:30 to 9 p.m. time slot at 909 Pentoga Trail in Crystal Falls. The listing put a live performance in one of Iron County’s most familiar summer settings, where camp music and community attendance meet on the shore of Indian Lake.
Camp Batawagama has been part of that landscape since 1945, when two Iron County educators established it as a place for young people to spend summer days in a safe and wholesome environment. The Iron County Chamber describes it as a four-generation institution, and local band camp materials call its band program, which began in 1955, the longest-running band camp in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Those materials trace the program to John Paynter of Northwestern University, Crystal Falls schools superintendent and camp director Kenneth W. Schulze, and local band directors who built the tradition around music education and summer camp life.
The 2026 camp schedule showed how tightly the season was packed around the faculty performance. Band Camp ran June 21-27, Senior Days were listed for June 17-19, and a student concert was set for June 27. Nearly 800 students were expected to attend in summer 2026, coming from the United States, Africa, Central America and South America, a mix that gave the Crystal Falls camp an unusually broad reach for a local program rooted in Iron County.
Interest in the faculty lineup was reinforced earlier in 2026 at a benefit concert at the Windsor Center in Iron River. That program featured oboists Marc Fink and Lynn Hansen, trombonist Mike Hall, clarinetist Robert Spring and accompanist Jon Ensminger. Coverage of that event said the camp had paused during the COVID-19 pandemic and returned in 2024, and that proceeds supported student scholarships.
For Iron County, the June 25 faculty concert was more than a calendar item. It placed working musicians and educators in front of the public, tied the camp’s instruction to an actual performance, and gave families and music supporters a concrete reason to spend an evening at Camp Batawagama while the summer season was in full swing.
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