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A Reunion of a Lifetime: Linda Lambert Returns to Tent Row After 70 Years

When the Senior campers gathered on the Crows Nest on the Saturday night of Reunion Weekend, they knew what to expect. Each TR group would come up front to entertain the crowd by singing an old camp song or doing a funny dance. Each TR reminded campers how amazing it is to stay best friends with your camp best friends … for 10 or 25 or 40 or 50 years. What the crowd on the Crows Nest did not expect was Linda Petree Lambert, TR 56. 

When “Mop” Queen volunteered to help organize Tent Row Reunions, she did not stop at the 50th anniversary. She reached out to people she knew from the 55th (who came), the 60th, the 65th and the 70th. And when she got Linda Lambert on the phone, Linda said YES! 

Linda speaks to the campers, counselors, and reunion attendees on the Crow’s Nest in front of Lake Aloaloa for her 70th reunion. Watch her entire speech on video here .

https://youtu.be/lVKyhA8QnSg

When camp learned that, at age 86, she was traveling from Oklahoma as the lone representative of TR 1956, she was invited to give a special talk to the reunion attendees and all of Senior camp. Her family embraced the idea of the trip back to camp and helped her with transportation.

Linda spent seven memorable summers at Nakanawa and was clearly an outstanding camper. In 1952, she was Lady of the Bracelet; in 1954 she was Lady of the Necklace; and in 1957 she was Valkyrie Lieutenant. Linda made sure her love affair with Nakanawa did not stop with her generation. She was followed by her daughter, Jennifer Lambert Sisk TR 79, who was Lady of the Cup; and three granddaughters, Blakeley Sisk TR 06,Charlotte Sisk Spector TR 2010 and Emma Lambert, who attended camp for two years but was unable to join the family in the reunion this year. In total, the five spent 39 summers at camp. 

Her daughter and two granddaughters came with her to camp to hear her talk. Having them with her only added to the event, which she called “A Reunion of a Lifetime.” Since Linda had not been able to attend her 50th Reunion, she had not received a gold Carson Cross. At the conclusion of the ceremony, Director Cindy DuBose presented Linda her cross. But few gifts could match the one Linda gave to all in the audience. 

Linda spoke for ten minutes, and the crowd was so quiet you could have heard a pine needle fall. At the end, many were in tears. A highly regarded businesswoman and community leader, Linda has done decades of public speaking. Her erect posture and warm smile were immediately captivating. She did not talk about what it was like to be in Tent Row in 1956. Instead, she spoke directly to the campers, exhorting them to make the most of their camp summers and to value their experience. She wove her remarks around one of our traditional songs. She said, “What endures at camp is told in the song we sing as we walk to Council Ring— “Wo He Lo. Work, Health, and Love.”

On the theme of WORK, she encouraged the girls to try new things, even if they are hard. She encouraged them to work together for the good of their team. And she reminded the girls that song is such an important part of Nakanawa. “We should sing while we work and while we play! “

For HEALTH, she shared how camp embraces overall health and wellbeing. Camp allows us to “re-set ourselves from the outside world,” and “gives us a place to live in gratitude, curiosity and kindness to others.” At camp we learn to be “gracious losers and humble winners.”

Linda had a lot to say about LOVE. “At camp, we find the good in people. We have others’ backs and they have ours.” She talked about the love of camp friends. In Intermediate Camp she was waiting in line at the Infirmary when she first met Anne Allen from Texas, the start of a lifetime friendship. When Linda got married and chose her Maid of Honor, it was not Oklahoma friends or college friends she turned to: it was Anne Allen. Linda talked about her favorite counselor who, during Devotions, asked each bunkie to name something they were grateful for that day, a ritual Linda has continued every day of her life. She noted that she is continually grateful for Nakanawa. “Camp was the greatest gift my parents ever gave me.” 

Linda is known as an outstanding community leader in Oklahoma City, and she credits Nakanawa with giving her this direction. “I don’t think I would have chosen a life of community engagement and service had it not been for the lessons I learned at Camp Nakanawa. That is a strong statement when you consider her record.

Linda served for decades as President of Lasso Oil Corporation, specializing in oil and gas development. She was often innovative in her profession. She quipped, “I have always colored outside the lines.” Though recognized as an outstanding businesswoman, she lived her life by this motto: “Oil and gas for my living, Community Service for my Life.”

Her community roles go on and on. After the Oklahoma City bombing, she served as Chair of the Oklahoma National Memorial Trust, which created a remarkable memorial and museum. She was elected the first woman Chair of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board. She has served on numerous other boards, including OGE Energy Corp. (Oklahoma’s largest utility company), Chamber of Commerce, United Way, Oklahoma Academy, Tulsa Opera, Oklahoma City Community Foundation, Oklahoma United Methodist Foundation, and International Women’s Forum. As Vice-Chair of the Oklahoma City Public Schools Trust she was instrumental in the rebuilding of Oklahoma City public schools. Linda served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees at Mercy Health Center as well as Vice Chair and Vice Chair & Executive Committee Chair of the Oklahoma City University Board of Trustees. She has won numerous awards including the Hall of Honor Entrepreneurial Spirit Award from Oklahoma City University, Casady School Alumni Achievement Award, The Journal Record Corporate Woman of the Year and National Conference for Community & Justice Humanitarian Award. In her spare time, she raised two children and wrote a book “Along the Garden Path: What I Learned about Life from my Garden.”

The curiosity she learned at Nakanawa has followed her around the world. From Antarctica to Madagascar, Syria to Tibet, Ethiopia to Russia, from Japan to India… just a sampling. Linda Petree Lambert was a remarkable camper who became a remarkable woman and gave a remarkable talk during Reunion Weekend 2026. We were proud to help her celebrate her 70th Tent Row anniversary and to be part of her “reunion of a lifetime.” 

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A Weekend Built for Beginnings: Mother-Daughter Weekend 2026

There is a particular kind of magic that happens when a young girl walks through the gates of Camp Nakanawa for the very first time, hand in hand with someone she loves.

That is exactly what Mother-Daughter Weekend is all about.

Each September, Camp Nakanawa opens its doors for a weekend built just for future campers, ages 5-11, and the special adult who wants to share it with them. Mother, grandmother, aunt, or family friend, this weekend welcomes them all.

What to Expect

Over the course of the weekend, girls and their grown-ups will:

  • Sleep in a real Nakanawa cabin
  • Take a guided tour of camp
  • Canoe across Lake Aloaloa
  • Ride horses
  • Roast s’mores by the fire
  • Learn a few beloved camp songs
  • Meet current campers and counselors who will show them what makes Nakanawa so special

For Every Family

This weekend is open to Nakanawa alumnae bringing the next generation, and to families who are brand new to camp and simply curious what it’s all about. However your family found us, you belong here.

For alumnae, it is a chance to pass down something that shaped your own childhood. For new families, it is a low-pressure, joy-filled way to see if camp might be the right fit for your daughter, without the commitment of a full session.

The Details

  • Dates: September 18-20, 2026
  • Ages: 5-11
  • Where: 1084 Camp Nakanawa Road
  • Register by: September 8, 2026

Spots are limited, so we encourage you to register soon to guarantee your place.

Questions? Reach the camp office at (931) 277-3711 or campnak@campnakanawa.org.

Register for Mother-Daughter Weekend

We hope to see you and your future camper on the Cumberland Plateau this September. The campfires will go out, but the memories will last forever.

CategoriesAnn & Pepe Perron, Camp News, The Valkazon by

Meadowview Lodge: Ann & Pepe’s New Nakanawa Home

Camp Nakanawa has had exactly four directors in over a hundred years.

Colonel Rice founded camp in 1920 and led it until 1947. Elisabeth “Mitch” Mitchell followed, directing Nakanawa for more than thirty years. And in 1981, Mitch asked her niece Ann, alongside Ann’s husband Pepe, to take on the role themselves. Ann had grown up at camp, starting Junior Camp at age 12 and later chosen Lady of the Cup in 1967. Pepe came from a poultry family in Gainesville, Georgia. They were both just 30 years old when they said yes.

Ann and Pepe led Camp Nakanawa for the next 41 years. In 2022, camp transitioned to a non-profit, and they retired.

They didn’t go far. On the same 1,000 acres where they spent four decades building girls into who they are, Ann and Pepe built a home of their own. They call it Meadowview Lodge.

The Plan on a Napkin

There was no architect, no blueprint pinned to a drafting table. The whole house started as a sketch on a napkin, drawn in the back of the camp dining hall.

“We had a plan that we made on a napkin,” Ann says. “We drew it in the back of the dining hall, and we took that with us.”

Built From the Same Ground

The fireplace came first in their thinking. “We wanted a fireplace similar to the big house,” Ann explains, “because we love that fireplace, and it’s real special to be able to sit on the hearth.”

They found their stone close to home. Crab Orchard stone is native to the county, and Larry Kilby, a stonemason who lives just down the road in Mayland, specializes in it. He built the Meadowview fireplace and laid Crab Orchard stone across the whole exterior of the house. It wasn’t Kilby’s first project for Ann and Pepe. He’d also laid three or four hundred tons of the same stone at the Crow’s Nest, for camp’s Centennial.

The stone means something older than that, too. Pepe grew up in a Crab Orchard stone house himself, back in Gainesville. “My father got it from up here by the boxcar,” he says. “He had special masons come in, because everybody was used to bricks, they’re all the same size, and Crab Orchard stone is all different. So stone was important for my past, and our present, here at camp.”

Above the living room, the ceiling is timber frame, Douglas fir shipped in and assembled at the builder’s shop, then taken apart again and reassembled on site, joined the old way, with wooden pegs instead of nails.

Even the porch floor was a decision rooted in camp. “We didn’t want a wooden porch,” Pepe says. “It’s the same with Egypt. We wanted the concrete.” Any alumna who remembers camp’s bathhouse will recognize exactly what he means.

The Door That Took 45 Years

The front door has its own story, and it starts decades before the house did.

Ann and Pepe had seen a door they loved roughly 45 years ago, long before they had a house to put it on. They kept the idea in the back of their minds. When it finally came time to build, they asked the timber frame company if they knew anyone who could build a custom door. The answer was yes: a Mennonite craftsman named Mr. Weaver, living in Spencer, Tennessee. He doesn’t drive, and he does extraordinary work by hand. Told what they had in mind, he said he thought he could do it in six months.

He did. A driver brought him and the finished door to Meadowview when it was ready.

The Everyday Things

Not everything about Meadowview is a grand story. Some of it is just the small, specific comfort of a house built by people who knew exactly what they wanted.

Ann loves the kitchen sink, a big farmhouse sink, sunk down into the counter. “It’s wonderful,” she says. “It’s really nice.”

For Pepe, the most important feature isn’t visible at all: accessibility. Wide double doors open straight onto the back porch, and the whole house is built to be handicap-compliant. “People can come here,” he says, “and it’s handicap-compliant, so we don’t have to worry.”

There’s also a quieter kind of legacy built into the garden. A young buckeye tree grows near the fence, a nod to a mentor of Pepe’s who was given a buckeye as a girl starting her career at a Gainesville bank, and who stayed there nearly fifty years. Buckeyes are said to bring good luck. “She taught me those,” Pepe says, “as I grew up along the way.”

And elsewhere around camp, 112 solar panels do their own quiet work. Together, they produce roughly 45 percent of the electricity that Camp Nakanawa itself uses.

What the Tree on the Door Means

The last detail is the one that says the most.

Carved into the front door is a tree. Its branches, Pepe explains, are symbolic: the different branches of their lives, the things they did along the way. And the leaves, if the tree were full of them, would be the children they hope they had a positive effect on, all along the way.

Forty-one years of campers walked through Nakanawa’s gates under Ann and Pepe’s watch. Now, every one of them walks past that tree, carved into a door that took 45 years to imagine and six months to build, every time they come to see the two people who built it.

Welcome to Meadowview Lodge.