50+ Lifestyles

Scouting Corner – Year of Celebration

By Thomas McDermott
Scout Executive, Illowa Council
Boy Scouts of America

Scouts put the OUTING in SCOUTING

Summer is over and the campsites are empty now, but the memories will linger forever with the boys! What a wonderful experience for the boys as they celebrate the 100th anniversary of Scouting in the USA. Whether their experience was as a tiger cub at day camp or an Eagle on a high-adventure trip, the experiences each boy takes home will make him a better person.

Scouting prides itself in teaching skills of safety, health, cooking and survival, as well as self-reliance, achievement, and cooperation. These are not taught in the classroom, but in the camping experiences. The boys learn by doing. And for the older scouts in Venturing or Exploring, girls also get in on these learning experiences.

Lord Baden Powell started this movement of training young men for adulthood over 100 years ago. His methods still are proven to work today.

Summer is over and the campsites are empty now, but not for long! Camping continues as a year round experience for the boys as well as the families. Here in Illowa Council we have fishing derbies, fall camp-o-rees, Halloween At Loud Thunder, klondike derbies. winter fun days, May At Loud Thunder, the OA Conclave, and outdoor training experiences for the leaders and parents.

Summer is over and the campsites are empty, but fall recruitment is under way to enroll new boys into the camping experience. To learn more, go to www.illowabsa.org or call 563-388-7233.

Continuing with our countdown to…

100 Things You Didn’t Know About Scouting

40. In Scouting’s first decade, dozens of composers turned out Boy Scout sheet music, including John Phillip Sousa, who wrote the “Boy Scouts of America March” in 1916.

39. More than 8 million people read Boys’ Life each month.

38. The Boy Scout Memorial in Washington, D.C., marks the site of the 1937 National Scout Jamboree. One of the few D.C. memorials to commemorate a living cause, it was accepted in 1964 by Associate Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark on his 50th anniversary as an Eagle Scout.

37. In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Scouts from New York and New Jersey helped reignite the American spirit, collecting more than 153,000 bottles of water for Ground Zero rescue workers—and placing handwritten messages of appreciation and encouragement in their hard hats.

36. The first Scouts to live in the White House were the sons of 30th U.S. President Calvin Coolidge: John and Calvin Jr.

35. Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton became an Eagle Scout at age 13, businessman and philanthropist H. Ross Perot at 13, and President Gerald R. Ford at 14.

34. American passenger railroads helped boost the population at the first national Scout jamboree in 1937—they offered fares at a special price of 1 cent per mile.

33. When America entered World War I in 1917, membership in the BSA outnumbered the 200,000-man U.S. Army by more than 68,000 members.

32. Portions of the 1963 movie “PT 109,” the story of the sinking of John F. Kennedy’s PT boat during World War II, were filmed on Big Munson Island at the Florida National High Adventure Sea Base.

31. Scouts have served at every presidential inauguration since Woodrow Wilson’s in 1913. Boy Scouts who helped out at the Wilson inauguration were Honor Medal recipients.

Be sure to join us next month for ten more tidbits of trivia!