May-June 2001

Capitalizing leadership positions for Cub Scout packs and Boy Scout troops

Your magazine is very helpful and a terrific source of information. However, I wish you would give Scouting ranks and leaders more respect by capitalizing the names of leadership positions.

Words like pack, den leader, troop, etc., deserve all the respect we can give.

Rudy M. Richards
Lewisville, Tex.

Texas Boy Scout troop helps celebrate law for Americans with disabilities

Michael Winter (left) of the U.S. Department of Transportation, keynote speaker at the Austin ceremony, is joined by Troop 1 Scouts Nathan Eakle (seated) and (standing, from left) Gabriel Prado, William Moore, and Dustin Penna in celebrating 10 years of the Americans With Disabilities Act. (Photograph courtesy of Liz Shelby)

At the Texas Capitol last June, Troop 1 was honored to serve as the official color guard for the 10th anniversary celebration of the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Austin was one of 26 cities selected to participate in the celebration, and the Scouts learned much about the importance of this legislation. At the same time, our Scouts taught through their actions the true meaning of inclusion of peers with disabilities in everyday activities.

During the ceremony, one of our Scouts, Nathan Eakle, who has cerebral palsy, activated a switch that played a recording of the Pledge of Allegiance (made earlier by Luke Lindemann, a Scout who could not attend the ceremony). Afterward, a man who noticed that Nathan used a wheelchair asked how a Scout with a severe disability was able to participate in Scouting. We informed him that Scouting provides for participation by boys with disabilities and that advancement requirements can be modified to fit an individual's abilities if specific criteria are met—including the standard that any alternates must be of such a nature that they are as demanding of effort as the rank requirements or merit badges they replace.

The man explained that he had a 4-year-old son with cerebral palsy. "I had no idea he could be in the Boy Scouts," he said. "Now I have something I can look forward to doing with him when he is older."

Scouts who represented Troop 1 included Ian McPherson, Eric Price, William Moore, Dustin Penna, Eli McPherson, Nathan Eakle, and senior patrol leader Gabriel Prado.

Last March, the troop, which is chartered to the First Presbyterian Church in Austin, celebrated 90 continuous years as a chartered unit. Started in 1911, the troop met in the State Capitol during its early years.

Liz Shelby
Troop 1 Committee Chairman
Austin, Tex.

Rescue memories

Reading "Saving a Life" in the October 2000 issue of Scouting made me recall a similar incident.

I am a police officer in a small rural town. I am also an EMT [emergency medical technician] and a certified rescue diver. While working the midnight shift several winters ago, I responded to a report of voices coming from a lake. When I arrived, I was amazed at how pitch-black the night was, and I could hear a boy's voice coming from the lake. After a brief moment of confusion over how to react, my training instinctively took over.

It wasn't the training I had received as a police officer or EMT, and it wasn't the training I had received from attending numerous diving courses. It was the training I had received as a Boy Scout. "Reach, Throw, Row, Go" flashed through my head. With the help of a courageous citizen, we paddled out onto the lake in a canoe and saved a boy's life.

If it weren't for my training as a Boy Scout, I might have simply waited for the fire department to arrive—possibly too late—or lost my life doing something foolish, like a swimming rescue attempt.

You never know when the training you have received as a Boy Scout might come in handy, even years later.

Mark Flanagan
Meriden, Conn.

Phone safety project is a hit

Don't Talk and Drive—Be Cell Phone Safe. Using this slogan, Boy Scouts from Troop 63, Kinston, N.C., launched a safety project for their Traffic Safety merit badge.

They began their badge work at the Occoneechee Council Merit Badge Midway, held in the Raleigh, N.C., Highway Patrol Training Center, after floods caused by Hurricane Floyd forced the cancellation of the Caswell District Advance-O-Ree. The Scouts then attended classes at the Kinston Police Department to complete the requirements.

After choosing their project, the Scouts contacted Alltel Communications, which donated 250 bumper stickers. The Scouts drew posters to display in schools, churches, parents' workplaces, and doctor's offices, with the rules of cell phone safety: Use a hands-free kit and limit conversations, and if you must talk longer, stop and pull over to the roadside. They also appeared on a local cable TV news show.

The Scouts received their merit badge at a court of honor, along with certificates signed by North Carolina Highway Patrol Commander Richard Holden and Kinston Police Chief Michael Wightman.

Marsha Lovick
Committee Secretary, Troop 63
Kinston, N.C.

Scouts from Troop 63, Kinston, N.C., display the certificates from local law enforcement agencies they received with the Traffic Safety merit badge. From left, Jason Lovick, Jess Edwards, Will Grizzard, Phillip Hardy, Steven Hill, Andrew Sutton, and Clay Whittington. (Photograph courtesy of Marsha Lovik)

From left: Aurelia Grijol, France; Runa Erbs-Hanson, Denmark; Amelia (Emmy) Kamazima, Tanzania, and Yi-Ping (Ester) Yang, Republic of China. (Photograph courtesy of the Viking Council Viking Council's)

Meet Some International Camp Staffers

I want to share a photo taken last summer at the Viking Council's Many Point Scout Camp. On the camp's "Earth ball," four International Camp Staff members are pointing to the location of the nation where each one comes from.

Bob Gagner
Camping Director, Viking Council
Minneapolis, Minn.

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