Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
Rogers Home & School Club
January 15, 2003
George Denise, Scoutmaster

A few weeks ago the Rogers Home and School Club and the members of Troop 325 presented me with one of the highest honors in Scouting: the James E. West Fellowship. For that expression of your appreciation for my work in Scouting, I am truly grateful. It is one thing to give someone a certificate or a plaque. It is quite another to invest your own money. A James E. West Fellowship costs a minimum of $1,000. That you would do this for me is truly humbling, and I thank you.

One of the things it made me do is reassess what Scouting does mean to me. As a youth, I was a Cub Scout and earned what was then their highest award. I then became a Boy Scout, and in the three years that I was active in Boy Scouts, I earned the rank of Life and all of the merit badges required for Eagle. I was kind of idealistic, and through an odd sense of youthful humility, I chose not to earn Eagle because I didn't want to be earning the badge just for the sake of earning the badge, and I didn't want to appear to be showing off. (These were well-intentioned sentiments, but probably a mistake in hindsight.) Following Boy Scouts, I became an Explorer Scout for two years, the equivalent of today's Venturing Program. At 16 I left Scouting to pursue the two fumes: car fumes and perfume, then college, a career, marriage and a family. But I always thought highly of the Scouting program and I have many great memories of my adventures in Scouting. It helped to shape my values, and I always knew I would return to it when my own sons were old enough to join. My father was a Scout and Scoutmaster before me, and I just assumed I would have sons and that they would go into Scouting too.

I've now been able to watch my three sons go through the program, each also earn the Arrow of Light, each earn Eagle, two earn Venturing's highest award, the Silver Award (and I am sure the third will in another year or so), but most importantly, I have watched them have a lot of fun in a safe and healthy environment and I have watched Scouting help to shape their values.

When I first volunteered as a Scout leader back in 1986, I used to go to district meetings and see all of those really committed Scout leaders in their red jackets and think, "Boy, they're really into this. I'm just here to support my sons. I could never get caught up in it like they are." Now, seventeen years later, I guess I've become one of them. Four to five nights a week, sometimes more, I am doing something related to Scouting. One to two weekends a month, sometimes more, I am "doing Scouting". It's a joke that when you volunteer to help in Scouting, everyone says, "Just one hour a week." Well, one hour has turned into more hours than I can count. But if you have to have a vice, being a Scout leader probably isn't a bad one. I can think of worse ways to "waste away time". In fact, I think I am a better person for it. And hopefully, I have had a positive influence on a few others along the way, also. I know I have in some really practical ways. For example, at least ten of my Scouts became certified as lifeguards in Scouting, three went on to became EMTs, one a para-medic and one went on to medical school. They have all shared stories with me of lives they have actually saved because of their training in Scouting, or their training that began in Scouting.

Thank you again for this James E. West fellowship. It means more to me than any other award I have received in Scouting... because all of you gave it to me.

Thank you, and God be with you.