Observations©
By Donald
S. Conkey
Date: January 28,
2010 - # 1004 - Title: Boy Scouts – second only to family in training boys (4119)
Last Thursday night Joan and I, along with our daughter Pam and granddaughter Amanda and her husband
Adam, drove up to Jasper in Pickens County to attend the annual Cherokee Pickens District Boy Scouts of America annual awards
banquet. It was held in at the Chattahoochee Technical College with 140 registered attendees. It was a wonderful venue to
hold this banquet in. The Scouters were welcomed to Jasper and Pickens County by county commissioner Rob Jones and Sheriff
Donny Craig.
It
was inspiring just to be a part of this gathering of Scouters, mainly scout leaders, to honor 58 young men who had become
Eagle Scouts in Cherokee and Pickens County in 2009 and to celebrate the 100th anniversary of scouting in America
with a huge cake brightly lite with 100 candles.
Becoming an Eagle Scout is not an easy task – but it is a worthy goal, a goal worth all the
effort a young man, his parents and scout leaders puts into it. And after 45 years of being involved in scouting I know that
for a boy to achieve this prestigious Eagle Scout award requires the efforts of not only the boy, but of his parents and scout
leaders, beginning with his cub master, then his scout master and finally his venture leader. Many are involved in training
up a scout.
I
have witnessed first hand how a boy is positively affected by the scouting program. I participated in scouting with two sons
– one became an Eagle Scout, one a Life Scout, and I watched several grandsons earn their Eagle Scout Badge –
often with strong encouragement from their grandfather. And I’m still encouraging boys to set good goals for their life
by working to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. In 2009 I strongly encouraged a young man in Troop 637 to complete his Eagle
project to become an Eagle Scout. He did, 12 days short of his 18th birthday. And I continue to encourage boys
to set their goals high. I encourage them to become an Eagle Scout as a teenage. It is, I believe, the best thing a teen age
boy can strive to achieve. As he works towards his goal to become an Eagle Scout he is usually an achiever in school, something
often lacking in today’s society where far too many boys drop out of school.
This point was emphasized by Sheriff Donny Craig as he
related to the Scouters in attendance that after receiving his invitation to welcome these Scouters to Pickens County that
he and Dr. Carlton Wilson, the program’s chairman, surveyed the 83 ‘inmates’ in their jail. Of the 83 inmates,
he said, only two had ever been involved in scouting. This is a message every parent of a boy should take note of. If parents
want their boy to do well in life, and stay out of jail, get them involved early in scouting. This message has been verified
time and time again by Cherokee’s own Judge Frank Mills, himself an avid scouter, who has told me it is rare that a
former scouter will ever show up in his court.
Scouting instills something into a boy that comes from being a boy among boys. It provides opportunities
for boys to practice, and to learn leadership skills often used later in their adult life, and in their professional life;
it provides boys ways to test their skills, and to better understand and hone the talents their Creator has endowed them with;
it provides them an opportunity to explore a variety of professions that often opens doors for boys to earn their livelihood;
it allows a boy to explore nature and to see for themselves, as they lay out under the stars on their camping trips, the wonders
of the world they live in, of the creations their Creator provided for them to live in and amongst; and it provides boys with
a better understanding of the unique and miraculous government the Founding Fathers provided for them to live in, an understanding
they likely will learn no where else since Progressives have infiltrated America’s educational
system and eliminated from today’s text books anything relating to ‘God’s Influence’ in creating America.
In addition to the 58 Eagle Scouts honored there were four adults who were presented the Boy Scout
District Award of Merit for their contributions to the scouting program. I was one of those four, nominated and introduced
by Charles Pineo, a leader of boys in Cherokee County. Charles, a special education teacher at Woodstock High School, and
I enjoyed a pleasant evening discussing the challenges of youth in today’s society, and how scouting could help improve
the lives of so many of those boys who struggle with a wide variety of issues that entangle their young lives.
This enjoyable evening
closed with a Scout Master Minute given by Cherokee County’s oldest and perhaps longest serving scouter, George Lingerfelt,
who related moments from his 47 years of scouting that closed the meeting with a feeling that reminded the scout leaders that
their service is a noble and enriching achievement in life – and then said in closing “it has been so in my life.”
