The 24th Annual B&K Basketball Camp is now in the books as another great opportunity for the ones who attended.

Included were instructional drills in ball handling, passing, shooting and rebounding. Offense and defense techniques were taught, with video tapes on hand to help as instructional guides. The campers also enjoyed a number of contests designed to sharpen their basketball skills.

The camp was brought together by the tandem of Bob Burton, a former coach at Paden City and the present coach, Fred King. Upon Burton’s retirement, the camp stayed together with the help of many. One of them is Assistant Coach Jeff Bowers, who has been with the program throughout the years. Others who have played an instrumental part in staging the camp are Mark Barnhart and Brent Croasmun, as well as Fred’s wife, Debbie, and daughter, Brittany.

This year’s camp like no other had kids from kindergarten to eighth graders from every part of the country, including Raleigh County, West Virginia.

A total of 94 campers and 20 Instructors were involved in the camp. The instructors, as well as the campers, were kept busy all the time during the day and even well after the camp. The campers were put into two separate groups, one for the younger campers and one for the older campers.

Instructors and workers who helped put the camp on are: King, Bowers, Barnhart and Croasmun; Debbie and Brittany King; and student athletes Logan Cosper, Lynnsie Parsons, Megan Cutlip, Josie Fox, Tiffany Palmer, Amanda Heasley, Dominique Craft, Zach Yost, Geoffrey Bidwell, Drew Bidwell, Jamie Billiter, Trey Leonard, Taylor Still and John Bates.

Early in the morning, the older campers separated into two areas, one outside (when not raining) and one in the big gym. Before they split up, the campers would stretch and shoot for 15 minutes before the camp started, getting into major motion. Meanwhile, the younger groups went to the All-Purpose Room, where they followed the same routine as the older campers.

Every day the campers shot foul shots, three point shots and hot-spot skill fundamentals like standing broad jump, vertical leap, rope jump, quickness drill and bag jumping. in addition, campers participated in an academic portion where the youngsters took a math test.

While all of this is going on, the kids are separated into teams and compete against their own age and gender groups. A ribbon ceremony is given that recognizes the campers every day for their accomplishments. Each camper has the opportunity to win a blue ribbon daily. During the games, if there is a tie, they shoot foul shots as teams to show the importance of the foul shot.