MattKendrick.com

Boy Scouts was a huge part of my life when I was a kid. My dad was a scoutmaster for as long as I could remember. I am an Eagle Scout myself. I’ve recently made a return as an adult leader. Thing have change some what since I was a kid. But the values and principles are still the same. Just a few weeks ago I ran into an old scouting friend Ray Bartley (who has also made a return). Ray and I chatted up a storm about the days from when I was in scouting. Then the topic of the Patrol Champions board came up.

The Patrol Champions board was something that Ray and other scoutmasters came up with to encourage good clean competition among scout troops in our district. Each Fall and Spring our district held a camporee event. Usually the event would start on a Friday night and end on Sunday mornings. Saturday mornings and afternoons on those weekends were spent by scout patrols going from station to station, completing challenging objectives. Some of those challenges included knot tying, fire building, team problem solving, log pulling, etc. The challenges were scored based on time, how well patrol members worked together, and other criteria. It was a lot of fun.

After the day was over the host would tally all the scores from all the events. The patrol who scored best over all earned the right to paint a square on the board. Their troop would take the board home with them until the next camporee. This went on for years. Till activity and interest dropped. I lost track of the board once I was out of scouting. I often wondered what had happened to the board. My recent conversation with Ray yielded in an answer.

Ray had obtained the board after it was decommissioned. He kept it in storage for a number of years. Upond request, Ray sent me some pictures of the beloved board. I am very happy for Ray sharing this with me. This piece of plywood and paint represents many memories from my scout days. I was a member of Troop 822′s Cobra Patrol. You can see we were on the board a few times. We were the first back-to-back champs (lower left corner). That was the fall of 1993 and spring of 1993. That was my first full year as a scout. Ray I thank you again and I will share this with who ever I run into.