AVI STEINHARDT/Courier-Post Tara Becker, 11, (front) and Kim Cook, 12, sixth-graders at Maple Shade's Steinhauer School, canoe during the school's annual class trip to Camp Ockanickon in Medford.

Kelly Shephard was trying to keep her balance.

She wanted to cross a swampy stream on a narrow, uneven wooden beam. If she could pull it off, she'd impress two dozen of her sixth-grade classmates from Maple Shade who were looking on.

But gravity got the better of her.

Shephard fell a couple of feet from the high and dry, chest-deep into the mud and cold water.

Her classmates chuckled.

"It was funny," said Kelly, 11. "Other kids fell in, but I was the messiest."

Not a problem.

Stumbling into the mud at Camp Ockanickon is virtually a rite of passage for sixth-graders from Maple Shade. They've been making an annual three-day trip to this camp since the mid-1950s.

The field trip is such a beloved tradition in the community that many parents take turns on night watch at the cabins to relieve teachers.

"The kids, when they eventually graduate, the ones that give speeches always seem to mention the sixth-grade camping trip," said Wendy Iarossi, the Ralph J. Steinhauer School's teacher of the year.

Last week marked Iarossi's 19th camp trip, but just her 18th as a teacher. She was a sixth-grader the first time she slept in an Ockanickon cabin.

This year, almost 160 students and 26 teachers and staff from Maple Shade made camp here on May 14, taking school buses out of Steinhauer at 9 a.m. They broke camp on May 16.

For three days, if it wasn't mud the kids splashed in, it might have been paint, at arts and crafts. Archery, swimming, dancing, canoeing or just running around this bucolic YMCA campground in the Pines occupied most of their hours. Each day, too, they ate breakfast, lunch and dinner together between activities. After supper, there was a dance or a movie before lights-out in the cabins at 11:30.

Not that they slept much. And they didn't get to sleep in, either.

On his first night, Matt Cusumano, 13, had only about 3 1/2 hours sleep, along with six friends who shared his cabin. They were awake until 3, he said, but he wasn't too tired the next day to try to nail the bullseye on the archery range.

"It's fun. . . . There's lots of games and other stuff to do," said Cusumano.

"It's like a big vacation. It's really cool," said Christina Macey, 11. "I was really, really excited last year when I heard about it," Christina said. "It's been funner than I thought it would be," and her first time canoeing was a highlight.

Not all sixth-graders make the trip, though. It's used as an incentive, and students who have misbehaved too much during the year get left behind.

"We see a difference with most of the kids (during the year). It's a huge carrot you can hang in front of them," said school principal Joe Meloche.

It was Meloche's fourth trip. Each time, he said, the three-day adventure teaches many kids life lessons that they couldn't possibly learn in a classroom - what it's like to be away from home and family, how important it is to get along with others and what it's like to live outdoors.

Despite the organizational headaches the trip presents, Meloche hopes to see it continue for many more decades.

"Camp just holds a tremendous aura for people in Maple Shade," he said. "So many of the parents have memories of when they were here."