Camp Oyo Boy Scout Camp

Side A: In 1926, Ohio Governor Alvin Donahey approved setting aside 55 acres of the Roosevelt Game Refuge for a Boy Scout camp. Since that time Camp Oyo has served Boy Scouts and other groups from Ohio and Kentucky. The name ‘Oyo’ is from an Iroquois word meaning “great water or principal river.” During the peak of the Great Depression in 1933, local Scout executive Harry Wagner approached the Civil Works Administration for assistance in building eight log structures. These improvements encouraged year around camping, earning Camp Oyo the distinction as one of the nation’s foremost Boy Scout camps. (Continued on other side) Side B: (Continued from other side) Materials for the construction of the camp included blighted chestnut timber cut from the nearby forest and stone from Turkey Creek. Seven log buildings, including the octagon-shaped dining hall and a frontier-style blockhouse, remain in use. The Simon Kenton Council, Boy Scouts of America owns the camp. This marker is erected in Memory of Lt. Gary Nolan Shy, who was killed in action in Vietnam March 8, 1968. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”