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rayezell_2000

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Everything posted by rayezell_2000

  1. rayezell_2000
    This year marks the 91st anniversary of the flash flood that drowned eight members of Boy Scout Troop No. 45 (including their scoutmaster) while they were on a camping trip along the banks of White Creek in northern Rhea County, Tennessee. This location, for two years previously, had been the site of the truncated Cumberland Boy Scout Council’s summer camp facilities. However in the handful of weeks prior to this calamity, the Cumberland Council had formally dissolved its organization and the executive had resigned his position....read how the tragic event unfolded here.
  2. rayezell_2000
    In late 2019, the Board of the Stonewall Jackson Area Council (SJAC) chose to abandon the name of their council that had been a powerful banner to Scouting in central Virginia since 1927. Now in light of this transition (either welcomed or not by current scouters, boosters, and onlookers), I think it appropriate to ....read here
  3. rayezell_2000
    The original establishment of Boy Scouting in Knoxville dates to October 1909, predating (by four months) the official incorporation of the BSA in February 1910. Local leaders of the Knoxville (Central) Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) are credited with organizing the first Boy Scout troop in the city. It was not unheard of for American scout units to be formed in the months or even years before Scouting was officially born in the United States by requesting organizational materials (i.e. the Scouting handbook, unit charter) directly from the headquarters of British Boy Scouting in Lon
  4. rayezell_2000
    Here's what the locals said of naming the council in 1927...https://www.scouter.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=1000
  5. rayezell_2000
    It looks like there is a bit of straying from the discussion of the now defunct SJAC. I've appended a 1927 newspaper article (Staunton, Va--SJAC headquarters) which provides some needed context for this discussion. The_News_Leader__Staunton__Virginia_12_Jan_1927__WedPage_6.pdf
  6. rayezell_2000
    Probably one of the most unique acts of patriotic service attempted by Boy Scouts in Virginia during World War I was the relocation of approximately 1000 scouts in June 1917 to two counties on Virginia's Eastern Shore to harvest 3 to 4 million barrels of potatoes from their fields. Keep Reading Here...
  7. rayezell_2000
    @RememberSchiff nice photo of the scout troop you posted in your reply...funny you picked that one because I'm planning an upcoming blog essay on early Boy Scout bands and drum/bugle corps in Virginia in the near future....
  8. rayezell_2000
    During the United States’ involvement in the Great War (World War I) from 1917-1918, Boy Scouts fulfilled a variety of vital service functions deemed important by the Federal government (and even some local and state governments). These included: serving as lookouts along US coastlines; locating unlawful radio stations; providing assistance during the flu epidemic of 1918; conducting a nationwide census of and planting Black Walnut trees; collecting peach pits for use in the manufacture of gas masks; planting of War Gardens and War Farms; selling subscriptions to the five loan campaigns during
  9. rayezell_2000
    Over the past few months I've posted essays about regional Scouting history and have gotten away from historical accounts of Orange Troop No. 1. I am taking this opportunity to return to Orange Troop No. 1 material, focusing on two long term encampments outside of the Town of Orange, Virginia in the two years following the Troop's formation in 1915. Keep Reading Here...
  10. rayezell_2000
    Boy Scout Camp Shenandoah, in it’s most recent iteration (and location since 1950), presently consists of 456 acres near Swoope in Augusta County on the eastern slopes of Virginia’s Appalachian Plateau. This site is the permanent location of the Scout camp for the Stonewall Jackson Area Council. However, few realize that “Camp Shenandoah” has been serving the youth of the region many more years and has a much deeper and richer history that extends back to the early part of the twentieth century. This essay will explore the first renditions of Camp Shenandoah at its original location at Is
  11. rayezell_2000
    Beginning in February 1927, Charles E. Wood, Special Deputy Regional Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), along with the Charlottesville Rotary Club led the effort to establish the Lewis and Clark Area Boy Scout Council #599 in Albemarle and the adjacent counties. Continue Reading Here...
  12. rayezell_2000
    I seem to remember a few vague references in Rowan's biography of James West that suggested that women were explicitly barred from SM service, but the allusions were not clear (at least to me). Seems that Rowan was basing the supposition on the force of West's personality (which was formidable). During the first formative years of the movement, it was more akin to the wild west with much less structure and a real divergence of means and methods only loosly controlled by the HQ in New York. So the occurence of de facto female SMs shouldn't be too surprising, and may be much more frequent that m
  13. rayezell_2000
    that's great, thanks...
  14. rayezell_2000
    The April 14, 1911 edition of the Staunton Dispatch-News (Staunton, Virginia) ascribed a unique status onto a local young woman by the name of Josephine B. Timberlake. Ms. Timberlake was heralded as the organizer of the first Scout troop in the city and noted as the first (and only) female troop organizer in the Commonwealth of Virginia and possibly the nation. Keep Reading Here... Are there other examples of female Scoutmasters or Assistant Scoutmasters from the first decade of American Scouting?
  15. rayezell_2000
    Looking for a list of early Eagle Scouts by city and/or state. Only need about the first 50 Eagles...anyone know if this is accessible?
  16. rayezell_2000
    thanks very much...
  17. rayezell_2000
    In the mid-1960s in Orange, Virginia, public facilities and social activities were separated by color. Black children and teens were commonly excluded from the same amenities that whites freely enjoyed access to. In the realm of recreation, black children had to adapt and be creative to enjoy many of the same sports as whites. For instance, a cow pasture became a baseball field or an empty street with a home-made hoop on a pole became a basketball court. However a unifying presence in the lives of blacks in Orange was the Church. The Church provided organization and opportunity that general so
  18. rayezell_2000
    When Orange Boy Scout Troop No. 1 Invaded the Lincoln Memorial I recently came across an interesting mention of Orange Boy Scout Troop No. 1 (now Troop 14) in a copy of the Marine Corps Gazette magazine (Vol X, No.3, Dec. 1925:192-193) that mentioned an otherwise unknown (at least to me) encampment of Orange Boy Scouts. The article describes Marine Corps Boy Scout summer camps and provides details from when Troop 1 from Orange, Va. attended the camp from August 29 to September 6, 1925. ...read more
  19. rayezell_2000
    Perfected Under his Leadership–Scoutmaster Rev. Frank C. Riley The second (and maybe most renown) Scoutmaster of Orange Troop No. 1 was Rev. Frank C. Riley. Riley was born September 27, 1888 in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated from Crozer Baptist Theological Seminary (B. Div.) in Chester, Pennsylvania, and from the University of Pennsylvania (M.A.), both in 1915. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Richmond College (University of Richmond). He was ordained in September 1913 at Lee Street Church in Baltimore, and this congregation previously granted him a “License to Preach” in 1908
  20. rayezell_2000
    Explore one of the BSA's earliest Scoutmaster training courses offered thru the University of Virginia Summer School beginning in 1913 at: https://historyofscoutinginorange.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/scout-mastership-at-the-university-of-virginia/ excerpt..."The September 1998 issue of Scouting magazine reports that from the early years of Scouting educators took an interest in the Scouting movement, seeing it as a useful adjunct to classroom education. Recognizing the need for proper training, universities began offering summer and evening courses for Scoutmasters. Beginning in 1913, Corn
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