Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org
Surnames: LeCount, Quinn, Lamovec, Petkovsek
----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 8/24/2022
LeCount Introduced as Camp Victory Director (2022)
Jeff LeCount has been named the executive director for Camp Victory near Willard. He is looking forward to promoting outdoor experiences to help veterans and others dealing with post-traumatic stress.
Valorie Brecht/Clark County Press
By Valorie Brecht
Facilitating hope, health and healing—in the words of the new Camp Victory director, that is the mission of the camp.
Jeffrey LeCount of Elk Mound is the new executive director of Camp Victory five miles west of Greenwood. He started in the role earlier this year.
Situated on 295 acres of wooded land, the camp provides outdoor experiences for veterans and others affected by post-traumatic stress (PTS) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The camp’s environment and activities promote fellowship, community and new relationships.
LeCount was on hand at the recent Camp Victory open house to share about his vision about the camp.
“I feel it’s my responsibility to give back to all veterans. You can’t cure PTS, but you can find ways to manage it,” he said.
LeCount served in the military from 2001 to 2009, with two tours in Iraq. After that, he was hired by the Department of Defense and worked for a contract company for three years. He retired in 2013.
Before moving to Wisconsin, LeCount had been living in Texas. He wrote the training material that new recruits in the military had to go through before being sent overseas. He was invited to come to Fort McCoy near Tomah and give a training. So, he came to Wisconsin and lived in Black River Falls for about seven to eight months while leading the training. He met a real estate agent who ended up becoming his wife.
At the same time, LeCount was struggling to deal with PTS and anger from the experiences he went through in the military. Greg Quinn of the Veterans Service Office (VSO) encouraged him to try visiting a hunting camp near Willard—Camp Victory. LeCount has always enjoyed hunting and being outdoors, and agreed.
“I came out here as a veteran with PTSD and the weekend here literally changed my life,” said LeCount.
He was so affected by his time at the camp that he started volunteering. He helped with mowing and groundskeeping, and eventually began guiding hunts on his own. He volunteered for five or six years. The beginning of this year, Camp Victory got its 501(c)(3) non-profit status and the board of directors had been looking for someone to guide it into the next chapter of its existence and asked LeCount. He is excited to help the camp develop to help even more people.
“It started out as Wisconsin Adventures on Wheels, so it was geared toward handicapped hunters. Then so many of them were vets that we started specializing in hunts for veterans. But really, it’s more than hunting; it’s outdoor therapy. It’s any activities that people can do outdoors to help them cope and process their traumas,” said LeCount.
He said that hunting is not always about harvesting an animal, either, as sometimes it’s therapeutic to just sit in a hunting blind, be still and watch the wildlife. The camp has approximately four miles of hiking trails and a fishing pond, and LeCount has ideas for expanding the reach of the camp.
“I want to break the stigma that it’s only a hunting camp. I would like veterans to be able to come here and do resume writing or learn about job skills, so they can be equipped to enter the workforce,” he said.
He is looking at potentially hosting workshops for maple tree tapping or woodworking, so veterans have a chance to learn a new skill or create something. LeCount is also a Chippewa Valley Technical College culinary program graduate. He would like to invite chefs to come teach cooking classes or possibly teach classes himself on outdoor cooking and grilling.
“I want to broaden the spectrum to help every veteran and also first responders,” he said. “What we’re finding is that police officers, firefighters and EMS are having a lot of the same trauma markers [as someone in the military may have]. A lot of people in those high-intensity fields have experienced some level of trauma and could benefit from our programs.”
He envisions the camp becoming a place for anyone dealing with PTS or PTSD, to help them process what they went through and continue on their healing journey.
Background on camp
The development of the camp land has been in a work in progress for over 20 years. Vietnam-era Marine veteran Al Lamovec and his wife, Kay, originally purchased 80 acres of land along Sterling Avenue in 1992. Lamovec and his dad, Henry, worked to build a cabin, clear forest trails and plant food plots for the nearby animals. Lamovec worked with Dale Petkovsek to establish an annual deer hunt for people with disabilities, about a third of whom were veterans. Petkovsek passed away in 2012.
Over the years, Lamovec and other volunteers continued developing the land. They planted 250 fruit trees and a hardwood stand, graveled the trails, added a pond and built an addition to the cabin. Lamovec was asked to join The Highground’s board of directors. The Highground’s mission in recent years has come to focus more and more on helping veterans with PTS heal. The Lamovecs decided to donate the land to The Highground to support that mission. They donated the land in February 2019, with Lamovec and an eight-person board overseeing operations. At that time, the name was changed from Wisconsin Adventures on Wheels to Camp Victory.
The camp has since been used for male and female veterans’ retreats through The Highground. Also, the La Crosse Veterans Center hosts retreats there for veterans with PTSD. Each fall, there are four-day archery hunts for different groups, including “in country” Vietnam veterans, Purple Heart recipients, Wisconsin combat veterans and Persian Gulf veterans. The military members experience camaraderie by having someone to talk to who knows what they’re going through.
Although The Highground and Camp Victory continue to share a mission of helping veterans, the two organizations found themselves going in different directions when it came to specific goals and future planning. So, the decision was made for Camp Victory to be its own entity. In June, The Highground announced that it had transferred ownership of the land to Camp Victory Inc., the newly formed non-profit. The two organizations plan to continue to collaborate and support each other.
The camp is available for veterans’ retreats; seminars or camping trips for individual veterans, couples or veterans’ families; veteran group hunts; school field trips and more. Contact LeCount for more information at 303-945-9996 or email director@campvictoryinc.org.
You can also search for “Camp Victory” on Facebook or Instagram.
