The Scouter -- March 2005Simon Kenton Council BSA
Licking District Trailmarkers
23 counties across two states are in the Simon Kenton Council BSA, with 16 Silver Beavers awarded here this year.
Licking County is proud to claim Trevor Gamble as our honoree in 2005, but Licking District has to share him with Connecticut, his wife Carolyn and family, the US Navy, Denison University, and the United Way.
Amazingly enough, there’s Trig to go ‘round for all of those claims. Our district chairman was honored at the council court of honor along with a distinguished crew gathered from the Ohio River banks to Delaware’s northern edge. Among that throng, what stood out in the photo montage at the end of the evening were the pictures of our guy on his carrier-based aircraft with a bit more and darker hair, and then a shot with his missing twin brother, a more recent snap with two distinguished men of whom one looked very like John Glenn…or as we’d say in Licking District, John Glenn bears a striking resemblance to Trevor Gamble.
As you get this, our district should be about at mid-point of a flurry of “Blue & Gold” banquets for Cub Scout packs , celebrating the 75 year anniversary of this arm of the Scouting Movement. 1930 began a program which, with the expansion into Tiger Cubs almost 25 years ago (how the time flies!), is the Cub Scout program we know today. It isn’t too late to work on the Diamond Anniversary Award for Cubs, units, and leaders, with opportunities to celebrate the long history and accomplishments of Cub Scouting.
One interesting suggestion on the requirement sheets in the yellow and blue packets is for adults and youth to read Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book.” Those who only know the (very fine!) animated version done by the Disney folks may not catch the degree to which much of the Cubbing program is indebted to Kipling’s great children’s book: Akela, Baloo, bears and wolves and tigers, growing and mentoring, all are part and parcel of the book and the program.
In fact, this could lead you to a slightly more obscure work by Kipling, a kind of “Jungle Book” for older kids and a good read for the grown-ups: “Kim.” Kim is another orphaned young boy who is raised and mentored by an assortment of parental figures who give both his mental and physical development careful and loving attention, with special care to introducing him to the outdoors as a tool to inner growth.
Historians of Scouting have long acknowledged that “Kim” is one of the two fictional works that shaped Baden-Powell’s work on the original “Scouting for Boys,” the source of Scouting itself whose centennial is coming in another couple years. B-P quotes “Kim” frequently, and a number of the activities in the book are taken directly from Kipling’s tale. Thanks to Amazon, you can run down a copy in a heartbeat…but if anyone in the Scout Shop is reading this, “Kim” and “The Jungle Book” would make a bunch of sense to stock!
One of two, you say? What’s the other, you ask? I’m glad you asked that…
“Finding Neverland” is a recent movie many of you may have seen without thinking too much about a Scouting connection. One more in what seems like an annual stream of “Peter Pan” movies, remakes, different takes, and background shadings about Sir James Barrie, a very popular author and playwright of the late 1800’s. The book and play “Peter Pan” were greatly beloved by Baden-Powell, and he and Barrie became good friends. The original Scout handbook, “Scouting for Boys,” contains many quotes and references to “Peter Pan,” as does the first “Scoutmaster’s Manual.”
And in “The Chief Scout’s Last Letter,” the note Baden-Powell wrote before his death to World Scouting and to all Scouts who would come after, he quotes from “Peter Pan” not once, but twice.
So there’s some late winter reading for you all as we prepare for Spring Camporees, Cub Day Camp, and summer camp at Falling Rock. You might even want to carry your copy with you to read by the campfire. They’re great for boys and for the men who never stopped being boys in the best way, just like Trig Gamble!
Yours in Scouting,Jeff Gilldisciple@voyager.net(Please send info for April or May to this e-mail,and we'll print it right here)