Trooper Island Camp, a youth camp in Clinton County on Dale Hollow Lake operated by the Kentucky State Police, saw its 57th season of camp get underway last week, hosting boys and girls from eastern Kentucky.

The summer camp will spend the season hosting groups of campers weekly from across Kentucky, providing a free summer camp experience that will place the campers working and playing side by side with the men and women who wear the gray uniforms of the Kentucky State Police agency.

The experience of getting to know the Troopers of Kentucky State Police has led many of the youth who attended Trooper Island to become members of the KSP force themselves.

Most of the campers who attend Trooper Island Camp this summer will be 12 years old and are mostly underprivileged and/or considered “at risk”.

Established in 1965, Trooper Island Camp operates solely on donations and fundraising activities and will host approximately 700 youths, according to Camp Director KSP Trooper Jonathan Biven.

Trooper Island has been operating on a yearly basis since 1965, even during the COVID-19 pandemic when in-person summer camps were banned in Kentucky and across most of the nation.

During that season in 2020, Biven and other Kentucky State Police personnel, designed and presented a “virtual” Trooper Island Camp that was extremely successful, allowing campers from accross the nation to complete a series of Trooper Island Camp activities online.

Now back as an in-person camp, during their week long Trooper Island camp experience, those attending will participate in activities that include swimming, canoeing/kayaking, archery, gun safety, softball, basketball, volleyball, cooking, fishing and others.

One of those activities include team building skill sessions, such as the one shown in these photos, where campers were divided into teams, and charged with building boats out of duct tape and cardboard boxes.

The boats and teams then compete in longevity races held in the Trooper Island swimming pool.