BSA Troop 451, Lewisville, TX

With our annual week of summer camp freshly behind us, the time seems apt for a bit of reflection. Why do we do it? Every summer for the past 19 years our troop has made the long trek northward to attend Camp Geiger. Why? What is it about this particular Scout camp that keeps us coming back again and again? Often, various officials from the Longhorn Council have inquired why we do not avail ourselves of the great facilities our council has to offer for summer camp. And it is true that both Worth Ranch and Sid Richardson Scout Ranch are fine camps. (I have not been to Camp Tahuaya so I cannot comment on it, though I understand it is similar to Worth Ranch and Sid). We use them throughout the year, camping at each one once or twice each year. The facilities available are not an issue. The flippant answer I offer to these queries is that, while we love those camps, there are three reasons we do not go there for summer camp: June, July, and August! There is much truth in this j...

Friday night marked another suite of signal successes for Troop 451.  Despite threatening weather, the Tribe of Mic-O-Say conducted the traditional ceremonies to welcome new members into the tribe. All of our candidates successfully completed their "ordeals". We were proud to see the Tribe welcome them as its newest braves and honorary warriors. Our four new Mic-O-Say braves are Austin Reid -  Brave Climbing Fox Jake Mahdak - Brave Little Guards Copperhead James Morales - Brave Looks Through Nation Robby Paul - Brave Fights Like Falcon And Five new honorary warriors Gregory Hayden - Honorary Warrior Ate (ah-DAY) Man Lance Brooks - Honorary Warrior Paints Fire Phillip Pratt - Honorary Warrior Cherokee Horse Shelly Koonce - Honorary Warrior Tawicu (dah-wee-chue) Guards Falcon Tara Koonce - Honorary Warrior Cuwitku (chew-weed-ku) Guards Falcon "Tawicu" (dah-wee-chue) means "wife of" in the Lakota Siouxan language and "C...

Thursday night brought Tapping Fire and with it all the panoply of a Mic-O-Say ceremony.  Several visitors from Troop 451 came for the ceremony, including Medicine Men Big Spirit Mist (G ary Lueking ) and Big Iron Wheel ( Richard Covington ), Sachem Three Lakes ( Mark DiCiaccio ), Honorary Warriors Big Coyote Mandan ( Kevin Bryant ) and Guards Copperhead ( Doug Mahdak ). Other family members attended the ceremony as well, including Pam Bryant , John Morales , and Pam Mahda k,  Nikhilesh Subbakrishna and Poornima Nikhil , as well as Amey Kashyup's grandmother . Tapping Fire is every bit the extravaganza you might imagine. You can read about another, similar event from 2017 that was especially significant to our troop. The centerpiece is the eponymous conflagration. Many times in the past, Troop 451 Scouters have had the honor of constructing this spectacular pile of fuel. This year, others were tasked with that chore and produced a combustible construction nearly 12 feet in...

I almost forgot to publish the update from last night! I tell you, as the week goes along, the pace of life in camp picks up and goes from hectic to very nearly chaotic! Wednesdays bring Family night and this year, Troop 451 was joined by Amey Kashyup's parents, Nikhilesh Subbakrishna and Poornima Nikhil, as well as his grandmother. They all made the long journey up from Texas to see Camp Geiger, the Wednesday night Campfire, and tonight's Tapping Fire. We are delighted they can join us for these festivities. After dining in the dining hall on pizza from the infamous Pizza Ranch, we returned campward to adorn ourselves in our faithful class A uniforms for the Campfire. We then gathered in "Scoutcraft Valley", just by the Structure that Chad Kral and another Troop 451 Scouter helped to re-roof this Spring. There, we formed lines so we could process into the Running Horse Council Ring in a stately fashion, arms crossed and in silence. Kevin Koonce was announc...

Thursday, June 20th, 2019 Resuming a more typical camp schedule, your correspondent was up with the sun to enjoy the cool of early morning and the lightening Eastern sky. The morning was somewhat misty by the enshrouding fog of the past few mornings was not in evidence today. As always, the various local avifauna provided a lively concert as the soundtrack to the dawn. Thursdays at Camp Geiger bring a palpable tension as this day will be concluded by the Tapping Fire! Tapping Fire is a tableau that must be experienced to truly be appreciated in all its pomp and circumstance. The actual event far exceeds my meagre ability to describe it but you may get some sense of what our Scouts and Scouters will enjoy tonight by referring to past descriptions of this grand occasion. The links below may help to assuage your hunger for news from Camp Geiger. Doubtless, tonight's ceremonies will consist of the very details described so many times previously . The tapping ceremony is a ritual ...

Hump Day For those whose week is defined by work or school, Wednesday is often referred to as "hump day". This seems a sad commentary on our quotidian lives but there it is. At camp, Wednesday means the best is yet to come as we are still warming up for the full Geiger experience! We enjoyed rain, off and on, from Tuesday evening, just before dinner, throughout the night, and up to dawn. Though the rain had stopped, the sky was leaden and the dawn gave scant early light. A heavy fog shrouded the camp, further softening the contours already made soft by their covering of trees and such. Often, on arises early enough to be the only soul to witness such pretty sights but this session, for reasons unclear, I have not yet managed to rise quite that early. Even rising well before reveille, I found most of our troop up and about already, actively preparing for the day ahead. Amey Kashyup, Daniel Woehler, Dylan Beaver, and Max Brooks attentively prepared for their role raisin...

Your correspondent is pleased to report that your Troop 451 Scouts were again recognized for having the cleanest campsite and being the sharpest unit. We have a long tradition of excellence in these things and of being recognized therefore. We should be proud that our Scouts are maintaining this tradition so well. Earning top honors here means that again Wednesday morning, we will hoist our Troop flag and the Texas Flag over the Cloud L. Cray Flag Plaza in front of the assembled campers and staff. Today we lunched on 'rib sandwiches' and tater tots. The 'ribs' were a factory-produced item that presumably had pork somewhere in its heritage. In its current flaked-and-formed state, it bore as much resemblance to pork ribs as a slice of bread has to a handful of wheat kernels. But no matter. When one sits down with an appetite from a busy camp morning, it's all good. After lunch has been consumed, we played another round of "Who's Got Sitting Bull?...

I have mentioned earlier that our troop is a full-uniform troop. Once, every Scout troop wore the full uniform and one would scarcely have been considered a part of Scouting without it. Lord Baden Powell, the British founder of the international Scouting movement, believed the uniform was one of the essential pillars of Scouting. The idea of having Scouts wear a uniform grew from purely practical considerations. Lord Baden Powell wrote this about the origins of the Scout uniform: I knew from experience with boys of all sorts in our first experiments in Scouting that one fellow got his trousers all torn and wet going through a scrub, another wearing a small cap got his face - very nearly his eyes - badly scratched by thorns in going through the bush at night, and the rain ran down his neck, others got too hot in their coats and waistcoats, another, going bareheaded, got sunstroke, and so on. So it became necessary to suggest some kind of dress that would suit all phases of Scout...

Once again, or stalwart troop members were up well ahead of the reveille call, preparing to face another day of excitement and success at Camp Geiger. Each day, some of our Scouts are designated to serve as our table waiters. Meals in the dining hall are served family-style and we sit eight-to-a-table. Our Table waiters have the duty of laying the table, ensuring that each camper has a place setting (fork, knife, and spoon), napkins, a plate, and a glass (well, the 'glasses" are made of the far-more-durable polycarbonate plastic but you know what I mean). They also fetch the food to the table and ensure the serving utensils and pitchers of 'juice' and ice water are on the table as well. In order to discharge their duties, they report to the dining hall twenty minutes before mealtime. Supervised by three Scouters, the Scouts get the tables ready for the rest of our troop to ensure an agreeable dining experience. Once the tables are laid and the food in place, we r...

Your Scouts and Scouters started the day off right. Most arose before reveille and donned their class B's in preparation for breakfast.  Four of our Scouts, however, headed to the dining hall bedecked in their sharpest class A's. Austin Reid, James Morales, Robby Paul, and Will Harris had the signal honor of hoisting our troop flag over the Cloud L. Cray Flag Plaza in honor of our being awarded "Sharpest Unit" honors the previous evening. In this, they joined the staff flag squads. The U.S. flag, of course, was raised first, as befits its due respect. The flag of the state of Missouri followed, and then the Venturing Crew 311 (the crew for Camp Geiger Staffers), Lastly, our Scouts raised the Troop 451 flag. They dispatched their duty with dignity and pride. It is great to be a part of such a great troop! Mondays bring French toast fingers and link sausage with which to assuage one's pangs of hunger. After nearly a whole day at camp and a good night's s...

Sunday, June 16th, 2019 Your Troop 451 Scouts did a great job of settling into our home for the week, Sioux Lookout campsite, where we have stayed 5 of the previous six years. It is a lovely location, if a mite windy at times. A salient benefit is that it is close to the Flaming Crow Trading post, which is always a popular site for the boys. One new feature of the campsite this year is toads. Yes, TOADS! Everywhere one looks, small toads are in evidence, crawling and hopping through the grass, over dirt, and across the roads. These specimens are perhaps an inch long (range 0.75-1.25 in, S.D. = +/- 1 .237). An exceptionally wet Spring has led to this amphibian abundance for which we may well be grateful. Toads eat a lot of insects and the other notable difference between this first day at Geiger and previous years was an abundance of tiny black flies. Whether the flies bite or not, I cannot say. They do, however, possess quite an arsenal of annoyance factors, especially buzz...

Sunday, June 16th, 2019 Your humble correspondent begs the indulgence of the loyal audience. Having been awake continuously since 7:30 AM Saturday, he finds he lacks the stamina to post a properly polished paragraph or three this evening. Look for updates tomorrow, both to your Troop 451 Blog and to our Troop Smugmug folders. I can report that a good time has been had by all of our Scouts. More anon!

Saturday Night, June 15th, 2019 Off to Camp Geiger! What would summer be without a week at summer camp? Less fun, for certain. A lot less! For our Troop 451 Scouts, our annual trek to Missouri to experience summer camp at Camp Geiger is surely a high point of the hot weather season of the year. For our 2019 sojourn, we gathered at First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, our Charter Organization and the home to Troop 451, at 9:00 PM Saturday for a scheduled 9:30 departure. Each Scout and Scouter packed and brought a sack lunch for Sunday and the large ice chests provided to keep them cool were soon filled with food of wide variety, some homemade and some store-bought. It's all good. The sack lunch is needed because the first meal served in the dining hall at Camp Geiger each session is Sunday dinner. Most other troops (but by no means all) who come to Camp Geiger call home locales considerably closer to St. Joseph than is North Texas. As a result, arrivin...