One of the greatest camp legends in the Parnell/Craig tradition comes from 1988. While there are no photos to document this particular event, there have been several eyewitness accounts to confirm this happened.
The story is taken from an interview conducted by Grady Eades with John Estes, Mike Brown, John Walker, and David Dotson in the early 2000s. As there are several people talking at once, the story has been edited for flow.
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“See Rock City”
John Estes: There was [a great prank in 1988]… you were in on it, I was in on it, Qualls, a couple of other people. Up in the compound, there is a shed that they store all of their paints in and all their paint [that is] donated. And somebody got the bright idea that they wanted to get up on top of Parnell dining hall and paint a See Rock City sign. So, they acquired, they went, they got into the compound under the reason…the Con-yard needed some paint for an eagle cage or something. And they just happened to acquire like four or five gallons of…
Mike Brown: Purple.
John Estes: Safety…
Mike Brown: Safety Purple.
John Estes: Safety purple which had been donated to the Scouts by Tennessee Department of Transportation. And they put it under the Con-yard staff site and about midnight one night…
Mike Brown: The last night of camp.
John Estes: Near the end of camp, four, five, six, seven, eight of us, get on top of the dining hall…
Grady Eades: Parnell [Dining Hall].
John Estes: Parnell. And we just [painted] “See Rock City.”
Mike Brown: Eight foot, ten foot letters.
John Estes: It was huge letters and you could actually see it from, well, probably can’t now. It’s probably faded off.
Eades: I was actually on the roof in ’96. It is still there, but it’s not purple anymore. It’s a light blue.
[…]
John Estes: That was probably one of the better pranks that we pulled and got away with right there. ‘Cause nobody, nobody knew what we did, but they knew we’d done something. You know, cause it was [Eric] Pelren’s last year, he knew he wasn’t coming back. [Matthew] Bailey wasn’t coming back. They’d already said that. And they knew that we’d been planned something, but nobody knew what we had done because nobody that was in on it told.
Parnell Dining Hall, home of the now famous “See Rock City” prank from 1988.
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As John says, I was in on this. My job was to get the paint. Someone knew the paint shed in the compound stayed unlocked. In the wee hours the night before the painting I scaled the chain link fence at a place we had scouted to not have barbed wire. I got whatever paint I could and somehow snuck back through the woods between the compound and Parnell with several gallons of paint. The next night we climbed on the roof with the paint and the rest is history! I don’t think I ever saw it in the light of day.