Camporee teaches Scouts preparedness

Courtesy Photo NICK SULLIVAN of Boy Scout Troop 312 of Gilmer shows how to rappel down the wooden mountain at the Cherokee Trace District Camporee. Scouts learn preparedness skills at Camporees.

The Cherokee Trace District (Upshur and Gregg counties) of the Boy Scouts of America had a great and fantastic District Camporee April 25 to 27, at the farm of Mr. and Mrs. B. C. Selden in Sand Hill, off of FM 555.

Their farm is stunningly beautiful. From the area where tents were set up there is a great view of a “mountain” directly east of there.

Troop 312, sponsored by the Gilmer Second Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was one of many troops that participated.

Fortunately, our troop came home after the campfire program Saturday night. We had clear skies with twinkling stars at that time. We had dodged a bullet of threatening rain and storms on Friday and Saturday. The troops that stayed woke up Sunday morning to rain.

Friday night each patrol took a hike with only one flashlight. Troop 312 got lost, as did several groups, but had a great time learning how to find their way to the assigned destination. When our troop camps, the food is almost always good because we have learned to make sure that we have good food. Camping, cooking, eating, and participating in activities together, as usual, was rewarding and fun.

One of the favorite Saturday activities was climbing and rappelling. Scaffolding had been previously stacked up against two tall pine trees and 2 x 10s were lashed to it to make a 42-foot wall. Scouts climbed the scaffolding and then rappelled down the wall from the top.

This scared the daylights out of some of the Scouts, but most of them overcame their fear and rappelled down and found it great fun. B.C. Selden, the farm owner who is 83 years old, said, “Well, I guess I’d better do this before I get too old.”

So he climbed the scaffold and rappelled down. For this he was awarded a plaque with his photo at the Saturday night camp fire.

Troop 312 wishes to publicly thank Mr. and Mrs. Selden for their generous offer of the use of their farm for almost 200 Scouts.

In the interest of helping Scouts understand that all food doesn’t just come from the super market, and actually learn how to dress fowl if hunting, the Scouts had to dress a chicken.

There were pots of boiling water and Scouts had to dip the chickens, after an adult had cut off its head, pluck it, and then properly cut it up. Troops brought Dutch ovens and had to submit a recipe and use it to cook the chickens in the Dutch ovens.

They could not fry the chickens.

The two judges admitted that some of the chicken dinners did not taste great, but that most of them were delicious. The boys in Troop 312 devoured their two pots of chicken. At the far end of Selden’s lake two zip lines were set up. Both crossed over water and it was fun zipping down those ropes.

Back many years ago they were made out of clothes line wire and were called trolleys. Since everyone was hooked up with a harness, this was a lot safer than the old trolleys. The boat race was very interesting and fun to watch.

Four-person teams raced against time. They had four “paddles.” One was a true boat paddle, but the other three were a yard broom, a plastic floor broom, and a pointed shovel.

It was very interesting watching the kids paddle the row boat. At least a couple of the teams figured out that it was a lot faster for them to turn around in the boat and paddle back rather than turning the boat around. It is nice to see these kids use their heads.

We did black-powder rifle shooting and several other things. Probably the most fun was the soap box derby-type cars that Scout Masters raced, pushed by up to 600 pounds of boys. They pushed them down a hill into a pond. There were wrecks and tremendous splashes.

I guess they had the Scout Masters ride them because they figured Scout Masters wouldn’t sue.

The 10 Scouts from Troop 312 who attended were Bo Sullivan, senior patrol leader, Brandon Escalante, Bobby Cozad, Nick Sullivan, Dylan Adkinson, Dylan Marsh, Dillon Hunt, Trevor Pilcher, Hayden Johnson, and Cameron Perez.

The adults from Troop 312 were Ricky Gilbert, Lloyd Dodd, J. R. Cozad, Robert Perez, and John Melvin Dodd.

Bishop Peter John Sullivan also came Saturday and stayed through the campfire.

This is a good example of the type of activities available to the boys of Upshur County through the Boy Scouts of America.

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