Tag: Boy Scouts of America

May 17, 2022 – Does Preserving History Matter?

May 17, 2022 /

I had an experience over the weekend. Quite out of the blue, my mom called on Saturday and said that the TV wanted to interview me about my experiences with the North Palestine Church. Not all of those details turned out to be completely accurate, but that doesn’t really matter. I swung into action to gather memorabilia to share and rushed out of the house to participate.

We called it Palestine Church growing up. It was about half a mile from my parents house. This was about as close as anything was. The only other public space was Fir Grove Elementary (about the same distance). The reason the church was in my life is that we used it as a meeting place for Boy Scouts during the summer time. It was also the fallback camping location for our monthly campouts (mostly wintertime).

The church was moved in 2012 from it’s cemetery location where it was built to about three miles down the road to Adair Village. The county now owns the building but it has essentially been closed since the move. They are slowly making improvements to get it ready for eventual use. However, there is no current vision on what it will be used for or even what needs to be done to make it usable.

As it turns out, the county was taking a video record of some of the people that were involved with using the church throughout the years. This is where the story I have been writing and my story intersect. Since Boy Scouts was such a fundamental building block of my youth, having a place to meet was an extremely vital component to having the entity exist. It also helps that it was extremely close and didn’t require a ride to get there every week.

Being speculative, would I have continued if I couldn’t easily get there? Would the troop exist without a permanent meeting place? If restored, will it ever hold the significance in the new location that it did in the old? These are all questions to be asked and not everyone in the troop many hold the same regard that I do.

These are photos inside the church at my Eagle Scout Court of Honor June 28, 1992. Each individual was asked what we would like to see the use of the church be. My response was that it maintains to be a venue that impacts people’s lives the way that this one did to mine.

End Your Programming Routine: If I am intellectually honest, the significance of Palestine church had a context of time, place and my personal interaction with the building. Just maintaining it as an available venue may never reach people in the same way. A fact that it was moved from it’s very rural location to a much more populated location removes the intimacy that us near it had. It could be anyplace anywhere really. So, while I have a strong emotional connection to the building, my real wish is that people make those connections wherever they are.

April 2, 2021- Gone But Not Forgotten

April 2, 2021 /

Today I received an interesting e-mail from the Boy Scouts of America. They still keep track of their alumni. They seem to do a better job than my schools.

I seem to remember getting one of these last year. I suspect that it has to do with my kids being part of the program and me putting my contact information in.

I have talked about some of my experiences before. I may be closer than others who do not have kids in the program or still remain in touch with local resources. So, I do get frequent reminders of the values and benefits from that standpoint.

Even though things have changed a lot, some for the better and some for the worse I still think that it an organization that provides value. One of the things that I find interesting is the growth and development the boys have throughout the tenure. The come in as fifth graders and leave when eighteen, if they stay the whole tenure. Most of them come in as children and leave as a true adult. There is a transition from a timid grade schooler interacting with high schoolers to leading a small organization over time.

When I listen to them talk amongst themselves I can still hear youthful optimism and naivete but to see them in action, the training pays dividends. It’s nice to learn skills and have fun but to be able to practice the fundamentals of leadership is the experience that I see valuable.

This is Easter and celebrating that Jesus died for our new covenant with God. We have eternal salvation if we want it. I hope that you have a great weekend.