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Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010

Cub Scouts mark 100 years with banquet

WARNER ROBINS — Cub Scouts from around the country took time away from camping and fishing in February to celebrate the anniversary of scouting with the organization’s annual Blue and Gold banquet.

Taken from the colors of the uniform, the Blue and Gold Banquet is the highlight of the Cub Scout year as it brings together not only scouts and leaders but their families and scouting alums as well.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of scouting, founded in February 1910 by a group of American businessmen that included William D. Boyce, who had recently returned from a trip to London, where scouting had started the year before.

According to the Boy Scout Handbook, Boyce lost his way in the thick London fog when a young man approached him and offered to help.

Boyce gave the boy the name of a business office he was trying to locate, and the young man escorted him to the address.

After arriving, Boyce tried to pay him for the service, but the boy refused, saying, “I am a Scout. I won’t take anything for helping.”

Boyce asked the boy about scouting, and after completing his business asked the boy to take him to the British scouting office, where he met with Lord Robert Baden-Powell, a British general who had founded the scouting movement in Great Britain.

Boyce was so impressed that he decided to bring scouting home with him. The name of the young man has been lost to history. But Feb. 8, 1910, Boyce led a group to found the Boy Scouts of America. Since that day, scouts have celebrated Feb. 8 as the birthday of scouting in the United States.

In Warner Robins, Pack 566, one of the largest Cub Scout packs in the Robert L. Scott district, gathered last week for its Blue and Gold Banquet.

Laura Mixon, who coordinated the Blue and Gold Banquet for Pack 566, described the evening.

“It was just like a big birthday party,” she said. “The kids played games including Cub Scout jeopardy and had a big birthday cake.”

Scouts also received rank advancement at the Blue and Gold event, she said.

Mixon’s 7-year-old son, Noah is a Wolf Scout with Pack 566. Joining scouts isn’t an option in the Mixon household.

“I just think it is a great extracurricular activity that enhances what they learn in school and gives boys positive male role models,” Mixon said.

While Noah will have plenty of opportunities to do his own good turns, right now for him scouting is just all about fun.

“I like Cub Scouts because we do fun stuff, and we do a lot of different stuff that is fun, like going to camp and going swimming and fun stuff,” he said.

Laura Mixon said: “You go out into the community for the rest of your life and tell someone, ‘I am a scout,’ ‘I am an Eagle Scout.’ That means to them that you are honest, respectful, a good person.”

Contact Alline Kent at 396-2467 or allinekent@cox.net.