Boy Scout Troop 325
Scoutmaster Minute
Court of Honor for George & Kathy Denise
July 9, 2005
Larry Polyak, Scoutmaster

A little more than five years ago, I sent a short email to George, telling him that I had a den of three boys who were looking for a troop. I asked if we could stop by to visit a troop meeting. Within 30 minutes I got a looong reply back from him, telling me that we were welcome to stop by, where and when they met, what we should expect to see, what we should not expect, and when would be good times to come if we couldn't make it to the next meeting. What I didn't realize at the time was that he had been on the job for eight years by then, yet he still had that much energy and enthusiam for the program.

After Erik joined the troop, I could see all the effort that George and Kathy put into it. It was all I could do each Tuesday to rush home from work, maybe have time to eat something (often not) and take Erik to the meeting. And there were George and Kathy with a complete program and materials laid out for the scouts. Somehow I felt inadequate. I was trying to justify in my mind how they could do all this every week. Not knowing the Denise's before this, I thought "Well, George must have taken early retirement or something. That's how he has all the time for this." But I found out... no - he has a very responsible management job which takes up a lot of his time. Then I thought "I'll bet Kathy doesn't work, and she helps him out a lot. So that's how they can do it." But I found out... no - she is a full time high school teacher. My wife is a teacher so I know how much time that job takes, even outside the classroom.

So I was at a loss for a while, then I finally figured it out. George and Kathy were from the planet "Scouto", sent to earth to promote scouting and its values, and all we mere mortals could do is stand back and marvel at their efforts. Once I had a logical explanation for it, I felt much better.

But we didn't just stand back. They inspired us. They inspired us to help out wherever we could. One of the things that I started doing was teaching Merit Badges. In fact, I was teaching the Communications Merit Badge at our Midway this year. It's an easy badge to teach becasue you just sit back to watch and listen to the scouts do things like give a speech or teach a skill. One of the other requirements is to demonstrate how to introduce a guest speaker. I had them do this one at a time, in front of the class. I let a couple of scouts do it, but they just weren't getting the hang of it, so I thought I'd give them an example of how to introduce someone. George wasn't there, but I decided to use him as an example of who I was going to introduce.

I said something like: "Our next speaker was a life scout as a boy, and as an adult has been Cubmaster for several years, as well as Scoutmaster for thirteen years now. He and his wife have three sons, all of whom have attained the rank of Eagle. He has been named "Scouter of the year", "Scouter of the decade" and has won the Silver Beaver award. He is a recipient of the James E. West fellowship award. He is a member of the Order of the Arrow. He has served on the committee and as instructor and leader for Bristclecone Juior Leader Training, several times. He has led backpacking treks to Philmont Scout Ranch three times, has been to Northern Tier, and has organized and led Bear Paw winter snow camping for the last several years. He is certified in CPR and First Aid, and is a member of the National Ski Patrol. Please welcome the Scoutmaster of Troop 325, Mr. George Denise!".

When I was done, a scout from another troop looked up at me and said "Is that a real person?" I had to assure him that George was for real.

I was trying to think of how I could wrap this up. You have heard all the statistics, you can read all the details in your program. And then I realized that a scout had already done it for me. Our scouts, our young men, often have the ability to cut to the chase and get to the bottom line. It was no exception in this case. But let me give you a little background first for those of you who were not there. George submitted his resignation to the committee on the day of a committee meeting, at the same time as a troop meeting. So us parents knew about it first. After the shock settled in, we asked Kathy if he was going to tell the boys. She said "Well, I am not sure. He's not sure if he can do it. It's going to be really hard.". The troop meeting went on as usual, and George did a Scoutmaster Minute. After the closing, he came back and and said that he had one more annoucement. He announced that, for various reasons, he was going to retire as Scoutmaster. He had a hard time, his voice cracked a little , but he got through it. Afterwards, the room became deathly silent.

On the way home, I mentioned to Erik how hard it was for Mr. Denise to get up there and do that. Erik thought for a moment and said "Well, he shouldn't be sad, because he did a good job!"

Indeed. George and Kathy: YOU DID GOOD!