Congratulations to the scouts who advanced in rank and earned Merit Badges. Our scouts have worked hard and deserve to be recognized in a formal ceremony. The Court of Honor has many other purposes as well including: witnessing their fellow scouts advance, perform in a flag ceremony, work on their Communication Merit Badge by being the Master of Ceremony, lead scouts to set and tear down, Public Speaking, etc.
I also have formally announced that the Troop will be implementing a three year term limit for the Scoutmaster position. As I have said at the CoH, there are several reasons for this; primarily to keep the troop strong and perpetual.
Chris will be taking over as Scoutmaster in September and is currently working with me to have a good pass-down. His attention to detail, love for the scouting program, and many years a scouter make him an excellent choice. I’m looking forward to working with him as an Assistant Scoutmaster.
The Troop trip this month was to Lost World Caverns in Lewisburg, WV. It was about a 4 hour drive and we got to our campsite at Greenbrier State Forest and set up camp in the dark. We awoke the next morning, made hot breakfast and set out for the caves. We were given brief instructions and put on our helmets, gloves and knee pads. We walked down a long tunnel of steps to enter the cave and walked to the end of where the tourist cave ends and proceeded to jump the railing, climbed up to the top of the cave and began our Wild Cave Tour adventure.
The cave temperature was 52 degrees Fahrenheit and about 150 feet underground. We went through a multitude of different challenges on our nearly one-mile tour. Some of these were the: The Long Crawl, The Funnel, The Drain and The Birth Canal. The Long Crawl being 50 yards long and ending in the Birth Canal, so you can kinda see where the nickname came from. We got covered with mud along the way and it was great!
There wasn’t a single scout or adult who didn’t have a blast so I would mark this trip as pretty awesome!
This past weekend troop 26 went to the yearly Catholic Camporee. It was one of the best camping trips so far this year. On Friday when we left the church I could already tell that it was going to rain. So we got in the cars and drove to the camporee. And as I predicted it did rain while we were in the car. But luckily it stopped raining by time we got there. Then as quickly as we could the older scouts helped the new scouts set up their tents then we set up our tents. Later that night when some people wanted to go to bed we had to go to uniform inspection which both patrols did good. Then finally we all went to bed during the thunder and lightning.
When we woke up the next morning we got our stuff together and went to breakfast. I could already tell this was going to be an active day. After breakfast the two patrols got ready for our patrol competitions. The first station the No Names went to was the tomohawk throw and the Knights went to the communications station. Next the No Names went to the fire building section which was very fun and after that we went to communications. The knights then went to fire building center and then the tomohawk section. After these we went to lunch and got ready for our last three patrol stations which would be knot tying, lashings and Catholic Jepordy. These three all flew by and we headed back to camp to play a good game of Frisbee. After playing Frisbee for about an hour we ate dinner. But after dinner we had to get ready for the award ceremony where all the patrols
would get an award for there points earned at each of the patrol stations. At the big moment the No Names got in the 1st teir for points!!!! For the Knights, thanks to Scott who filled In as Troop Guide and Luke the patrol leader, they worked very hard to get, wait for it, wait for it, second tier in points!!! This was very exciting because this was the Knights first campout as full Boy Scouts. Then saddly after a very fun day we headed back to camp.
Surprisingly the camp fire we had was one of the best parts of the day. We told “yo mamma jokes”, Austin told us useless stories and we shared our weirdest dreams with each other. But finally we had to go to bed. Sunday morning we ate a quick breakfast and took down our tents in the rain. So finally we went to our last activity, Mass. At Mass we had a very special visitor. It was Bishop Jugis. Two of our scouts, Austin and Travis were presented with their Ad Altare Dei award from Bishop Jugis. After mass we got and our cars and started on our way home. Overall the trip was very eventful and very fun.
