“Fun with the Boy Scouts”

I have been a Cub Scout, Boy Scout and Explorer Scout and loved the experience it gave.  The summer of 1956, Moe Stephens, Chester David Myers and I were selected to the staff at Camp Packentuc, in the Shawnee National forest, near Harrisburg, Ill.  Me having BSA lifesaving and Red Cross Lifeguard I was a shoe in for waterfront.  We had scouts for a week at a time from all over western Kentucky and a week to open and close camp.

We would take kids on an overnight one night out of their week.  We would teach them on this trip how to build a fire without matches and how to build a comfortable shelter with available materials.  We fished and taught them to dress their fish, cover it with mud and cook it in hot coals.  Then it could be broken open and the pure white meat eaten easily.  Honest it is easy and (Clean).

Our Explorer Scout post 35 had a drill team led by Gene Dowdy who had just retired from the Marine Corp.  He taught us the manual at arms and we were a crack drill team.  We won honors all over and the commander at Millington NAS,  Commander Joe Clifton, had us come to the naval station often to perform.  He was a naval ace in WW2 and a Paducah son.  Our leaders were Dr. O. C. Barber, Wilson Cannon, Gene Dowdy and I cannot leave out Jerrald Chandler.

After I graduated school I was a adult leader in the post. That is until I went into the army.  My scouting experience really paid off for me there.

When the Lions Club decided to sponsor a troop Gilbert Hess offered to be Scout Master but he said he had no scout experience.  I volunteered to help him for a year to get started.  This year turned into two years.

We had a really great group of scouts.  All of them grew up to be responsible citizens and good family men with good jobs.  I always joke that of all the boys I supervised in scouting I only had one failure.  He became a teacher and now Hickman County Schools, Superintendent.

This group all wanted to go to summer camp, at the BSA camp on Kentucky Lake, so we were off.  They were one of the smallest to go there but earned more awards and badges than any other troop.  They wanted to earn their woodman badge which is one of the most difficult to earn and I told them that if, they could find an instructor. One who would help them do it during the hour break, after lunch, as they had chosen projects for the regular hours.

Jan Harpole was on staff and helped them get it done, giving up his lunch break to do it.   I will never forget how hard they worked.  I think their project was a bridge and the materials cut with a scout hatchet.  I will always remember one young man who I noticed had some nasty blisters on his hands but was determined to finish.  I tried to get him to take another task but he was having none of it.  I will never forget this and I bet Kenny Wilson does not either.