Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
45 Years of Scouting
August 30, 2005 Newsletter
Larry Polyak, Scoutmaster

This year, our Troop celebrates its 45th birthday. That's forty five years of Service, Leadership, and Achievement. The Troop was formed fifteen years before Atari released the first the video game for home use. Gunsmoke was the most popular TV show, and Bonanza had just gotten its start as the first TV show to be filmed and broadcast in color. A gallon of gas cost 30 cents and the average cost of a new home was $16,500. In 1960, Elizabeth Taylor won the best actress award. Cassius Clay Jr. won the Gold Medal for Boxing in the Summer Olympics in Rome. You may know him better as Muhhammad Ali. The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the New York Yankees in the World Series, but it would be another seven years before the first Super Bowl would be played.

In the last forty five years, we have gone from rotary phones to touch tones to cell phones. Studebaker is out, Lexus is in. Our country has been led by Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, all of whom have had their own methods and opinions on the right and wrong ways to do the same job.

Troop 325 has had fifteen Scoutmasters before me, and has had about fifty Senior Patrol Leaders before Eddie. There is no longer a Boy Scout Merit Badge in Rabbit Raising but there is one in Nuclear Science.

Despite all these changes during this time, the Scout Oath and Scout Law have remained the same. The basic teachings and principles of the Boy Scouts has not changed. You should find it reassuring that the skills and values you learn in Boy Scouts will help you in life for years, and years, and years to come, and will not get out of date. I am proud to witness all of the awards you have earned tonight and am proud to be your Scoutmaster.

Thank you for listening.