January-February 2000January-February 2000
Edited by Scott Daniels
Certain standards for units, districts, and councils to earn a Quality award have been modified for the year 2000.
Year 2000 Quality Units will receive a unique red, white, and blue streamer with gold lettering, to decorate their flagpole in recognition of being one of the first Quality Units of the new millennium. Other Quality award recognition items will have similar colors.
Eagle Scouts graduating from high school in 2000 can apply for a college scholarship through the National Eagle Scout Association. NESA review committees will select winners and also determine the number and size of scholarships.
Applicants must be currently registered in the BSA and have (1) received the Eagle Scout Award prior to submitting an application, (2) an SAT and/or ACT score acceptable to committee standards, and (3) demonstrated leadership in Scouting and strong participation in activities outside Scouting. They also must demonstrate financial need and have the endorsement of a volunteer or professional Scout leader who knows them personally.
Ask for the NESA Eagle scholarship application form No. 58-702 at local council service centers or write Eagle Scout Service, S220, P.O. Box 152079, Irving, TX 75015-2079. Applications must be postmarked by Feb. 28 and received by March 5.
The 2000 National Endowment Tour will visit 17 cities this year, with displays of artwork, publications, posters, uniforms, photographs, and other Scouting items that represent the BSA's contribution to American society.
The tour is designed to honor local citizens for substantial contributions to their local Scout council endowment fund and to serve as a catalyst for additional giving. The BSA will host special receptions for donors at each location. All new 1910 Society and Founders Circle members will be inducted in a brief ceremony conducted by the Chief Scout Executive or his designee.
This year's National Endowment Tour locations and dates are Fort Worth, Tex., Jan. 27; Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 3; Greensboro, N.C., Feb. 17; West Palm Beach, Fla., Feb. 22; Miami, Fla., March 2; Orange County, Calif., March 16; San Mateo, Calif., March 30; Tacoma, Wash., April 6; Phoenix, Ariz., April 13; Minneapolis, Minn., May 4; Omaha, Neb., May 18; Cincinnati, Ohio, Sept. 26; St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 5; Pittsburgh, Penn., Oct. 12; Philadelphia, Penn., Oct. 19; New York, N.Y., Oct. 26; and Boston, Mass., Nov. 2.
In Dallas, United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas visits
with (left to right) An Tran of Troop 245, Nimas Thomas of Troop 949,
Dallas police Officer Marlin R. Price, and Devin Womack of Pack 949
while learning about the Partners in Youth Crime Prevention program.
The five-year-old initiative by the BSA's Circle Ten Council organizes
Scouting units in high-crime neighborhoods, utilizing active-duty
police officers as unit leaders.
From the first weekend in January through the first weekend in March, New Hampshire's Daniel Webster Council offers exciting, cold-weather high adventure in winter trek programs.
"Sleeping outside in the winter can be an amazingly fun, and warm, experience—if you know how to do it," says John Rainville, director of the council's Outdoor Education and Outreach Program. "Scouts learn how to cook in cold weather, what the best foods are for keeping you warm and energized, and how to build snow shelters to sleep in."
Winter camping skills can help a Scout in any season, Rainville adds, and since the program began a dozen years ago, "Scouts have come from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and other states to participate."
January temperatures in New Hampshire are among the nation's most frigid. "We've camped in temperatures as low as 25 below zero," Rainville says, "although overnight lows are usually in the teens or 20s."
"If we can do it here," he adds, "you can do it anywhere."
A special winter attraction is ice-climbing, a dynamic sport guaranteed to heat up the chilliest day.
The council also offers a high adventure program in the fall. Activities include rock-climbing at the Mead Wilderness Base, backpacking in the majestic White Mountains, kayaking on picturesque lakes, and mountain biking over a variety of terrain types.
For more information, call John Rainville or Raelyn Viti, the council director of high adventure, at (603) 625-6431.
The OA national chief and Venturing's national youth president represent the BSA at the Seventh World Scout Youth Forum.
By Will Parker
Order of the Arrow National Chief
Nestled in the mountains outside Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, the Tudor-style dining hall of Michaelhouse College was filled with 120 colorfully clad young people from all parts of the globe.
This International Evening was the final event of the Seventh World Scout Youth Forum held last July. Delegates from most of the 51 nations represented distributed literature, trinkets—and, of course, food—to passersby.
Convened every three years, the forum brings together Scouting's youth leaders to discuss issues and formulate recommendations to the World Scout Committee. As Order of the Arrow national chief, I represented the Boy Scouts of America, along with Jonathan Fulkerson, national youth president of the BSA's Venturing program.
 Parker and Fulkersonvisit with the World Bureau's Shana McElroy, a past BSA national Explorer president. |
The forum held discussions on the "Essential Characteristics of Scouting" and "Youth Participation in Decision Making." It asked the World Scout Conference, which convened the following week in nearby Durban, South Africa, to analyze implementation of the forum resolution concerning youth members' involvement in the decision-making process.
(In 1993, the forum—and the World Scout Conference—passed resolutions promoting youth involvement in the policy-making and program-directing operations of national Scout associations. Many delegates believed most national associations had not heeded those agreements.)
Individual delegates hosted open forum sessions on issues such as "Scouting and Religion" and "Scouting and Armed Conflict" and workshops on topics such as "Practical Decision Making" and "Community Development Projects."
Jonathan sponsored an open forum on "Youth Violence." Prompted by the recent rash of violence in American schools, participants shared their common experiences with youth violence and explored possible solutions.
I hosted a workshop on the benefits and methods of our Scouting honor society, the Order of the Arrow, so other Scout associations might benefit from the program that has worked well in the BSA.
This workshop experience was unexpectedly educating. Some Scouts appreciated the idea and expressed interest in adapting a similar OA-type program for their home association. But others objected to the concept of an honor society, which seemed to them to encourage elitism.
For Jonathan and me, however, the fondest memories of attending the youth forum came not from the discussions and formal program. Rather, we will look back fondly on those invaluable in-between times:
When we could practice our broken French with a native speaker; when we could sing Zulu songs, hands interlocked with Scouts from say, Madagascar or Thailand; when we could hold late-night talks with Scouts from Australia or Brazil or South Africa.
Those moments, when we could exchange those universal tokens of humanity—the smile, the laugh, the hug—will remain in our memories forever.
The forum was a time of sharing ideas and experiences and points of view, of moving beyond cultural and political barriers. It was a time when 120 Scouts, proud of their own countries and heritage, could stand together, even more proud of one thing that, as Jonathan and I discovered, is universal: the Spirit of Scouting.
Will Parker, an Eagle Scout, attends Davidson College.
 At the World Scout Youth Forum, Will Parker found that Scout youth leaders from around the world shared a universal Spirit of Scouting but did not always agree about a concept like the BSA's Order of the Arrow. |
Ohio's Simon Kenton Council will hold its 15th annual Maple Sugar Festival from the last weekend in February through the first weekend in March.
Preparations by 250 staffers require months of work, but the rewards could hardly be sweeter. At the council's 250-acre Camp Lazarus, north of Columbus, up to 300 mature maple trees are marked for early January tapping. Firewood is stacked for the cooking process that reduces huge vats of sap to a few gallons of pure maple syrup.
One might expect a festival like this to be in Vermont or New York, the nation's two top producers of maple syrup, rather than the hills and dales of central Ohio. But as far as council staff can determine, it's the only Scout version of its kind in the country.
And besides providing a sweet treat and a fun-filled outing, the festival serves other purposes.
"It's an educational experience," explains Chuck Howard, chief ranger for the council. "Scouts learn how maple syrup is produced—and how much time and effort that takes."
For example, a full cord of wood is burned in boiling down 600 gallons of sap into syrup. But those same 600 gallons, boiled under different weather conditions, will result in varying amounts of syrup. Ideal "sugar weather," with temperatures below freezing at night and not much above 45 in the daytime, will produce as much as 85 gallons of syrup; in warmer weather, the result can be as few as 15 gallons.
Scouts also witness the exacting art of tapping trees and drawing sap. A tree is usually about 40 years old and must be at least 10 inches in diameter. Holes less than a half inch in diameter are drilled 3 inches deep into the trunk and fitted with a metal spout or "spile." A covered bucket is attached to collect the sap.
Other activities include air rifle, leather crafts, crosscut saw competitions, and blacksmithing demonstrations. Entertainment has ranged from Civil War reenactors and Indian dancers to a chain-saw sculptor.
The festival is a great way to introduce Cub Scouts to Camp Lazarus and also serves as a major fundraiser.
"We ask each participant for a $1 donation," Howard says. "Some years more than 3,000 people attend, and a nominal sum like that mounts up. We also offer all-you-can-eat pancakes—with our own fresh maple syrup—for $5."
In The Big Talk (John Wiley & Sons, $14.95), author Laurie Langford offers help for parents who get tongue-tied just thinking about discussing the subject of sex with their kids. She gives tips on how to talk about values and self-respect, setting high standards and sticking to them, and having fun with members of the opposite sex without being pressured into sex. Langford also supplies sample dialogues, games, role-playing exercises, and other useful tools for breaking the ice with children and keeping the lines of communication open. |
Can "Star Wars" teach science to youngsters? That's the goal of Star Wars DroidWorks, the first educational software title from Lucas Learning Ltd. DroidWorks lets players investigate the principles of energy, force and motion, light, and magnetism while designing their own droids from 87 robotic parts. A holographic design grid allows 360-degree 3-D viewing, while players construct, customize, and test their droids. Once the droids are constructed, players can maneuver them on 29 different missions as agents of the Rebel Alliance. CD-ROM for Windows and Macintosh, $39.95. |
The Complete Wilderness Training Book (DK Publishing, $13.95) teaches all the skills necessary for living off the land—even in the most adverse conditions. Panic, fear, and depression, says author Hugh McManners, a former British Army paratrooper, are the biggest threats to survival in the outdoors. His book contains hundreds of practical skills, such as how to stay warm and dry, obtain food and water, make a compass, splint a broken arm, and survive a blizzard. The book is richly illustrated with more than 950 photographs and pictures. |
13—The group of 10 Scouts and three Scouters from California's Mount Diablo Silverado Council who spent two and a half weeks in Sakai, Japan, last summer as part of an exchange program with Japanese Scouts and their families. The 13 travelers spent two years planning the trip and raising money to "make it happen."
52—contestants who will be escorted by Eagle Scouts from the Ozark Trails Council when the 2000 Miss USA Pageant opens at Branson, Mo., in late January.
53—consecutive years the Louisville Catholic Committee on Scouting of Kentucky's Lincoln Heritage Council has hosted its annual Flaget Trail. The August event offered Scouts an opportunity to learn about the Catholic heritage of their area and featured a ride on a railroad train.
1,700—Boy Scouts, Webelos Scouts, and Scouters who turned out for the fun-filled 1999 Greenville Treaty Camporee, sponsored by Ohio's Miami Valley Council. Theme of the latest edition of the biennial event: "Scouting in the New Millennium."
73—the number of consecutive annual Scouter Recognition Dinners held by the Erie Shores Council. This year's dinner on June 10 continued a tradition begun in 1926.
77—years of active service to Scouting chalked up by Edward Whitehead, who was awarded the BSA Spririt of Scouting Award for service to urban youth by the Detroit Area Council.
600—the number of merit badges earned by more than 200 Scouts during a special Merit Badge College conducted in February and March by the Mus- kingum Valley Council at Ohio University-Zanesville.
10,000—Scouts and Scouters who attended June's Ripley Rendezvous 1999, the largest Scout gathering in Minnesota.
$53,000—raised by the Friends of Scouting campaign in Roanoke, Va., with the help of NBA Hall of Famer and former Scout Willis Reed, who served as keynote speaker at two major events in March. A lifelong lover of the outdoors, Reed noted that one of his few regrets was never becoming an Eagle Scout.
 Justin Marquart |
More than seven years ago, Eagle Scout Justin Marquart and Life Scout Fred Banzhaf were killed on Thanksgiving Day 1992 during an armed robbery at the Richardson, Tex., sporting goods store where they worked. But the two Scouts' memory lives on in the form of a memorial scholarship fund established in their honor by Richardson's Troop 444, in which both boys were leaders and role models at the time of their deaths.
 Fred Banzhaf |
To date, the fund has awarded $7,000 in scholarships to help 14 Scouts—most of whom never knew Justin or Fred personally—pay for their higher education.
The troop also built a new pavilion at the Circle Ten Council's Camp Constantin and dedicated it as a memorial to the two Scouts.
"Justin and Fred were exemplary young men, who represented all the positive attributes of Scouting," said Marty Korn, assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 444. "This is a way to recognize their accomplishments and remember the contributions they made to our troop and our community."
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