Boy Scouts

I have always been intrigued with the connection our family had to the Boy Scouts. Both Jerry Thorne and Dale Stark were professional scouters for a while, and many of the boys of various generations have been scouts and scout leaders.

I always liked the Scouts, getting out and going camping was fun. Earning the merit badges was fun, at least for most of them. Getting ready for scouts forced me to get over a serious childhood fear of the water that resulted from falling into ditches and rivers a couple of times.

This photo shows me with my mother at a Court of Honor in the Kuna LDS Chapel where I am getting my Life Scout rank. I was 12 or maybe 13, and sure look young.

My favorite experience was being on the staff at the Billy Rice Boy Scout summer camp in 1966. I got my Eagle Scout rank the year before, so I was eligible, and I wasn’t really old enough to earn much money at a summer job yet anyway. It was interesting to be away from home a little longer than I had before, to try out being on my own in a very structured, safe situation. It was a lot of fun to be outdoors nearly all summer. In retrospect, it also let let me try out teaching things to younger kids and finding out that I liked to do that. I taught basic stuff like local plants, cooking, and camping–helping kids pass off First and Second Class scout requirements–and the corresponding merit badges.

I also got inducted into the Order of the Arrow, which was something I had kind of fantasized about after reading about it in the Scout books. I remember being put on vigil and having to sleep the wrong way across a large rock, but, hey, I was only 15 and it seemed like a big adventure. It was also cool to be doing something that no leader or friend’s Mom (my friend DelRobin Thornton’s mother had pushed three of us pretty hard to get our Eagles, starting with Red Cross swimming lessons when we were only eight or nine) or anyone else had pushed me into. It was something new.

This photo shows me on the lawn at the farm in Kuna, wearing the summer dress uniform that I had bought to use on scout camp staff.