March Temple Trip

This was our last temple trip before Colin Walker moved into the Teacher's Quorum.  We will miss you, brother!

Thanks to the family history efforts of the Julian and Voorhees families, our quorum did ordinance work for family names entirely.  It was a great experience for all.

(From right to left: Vince Hunt, Austin Weight, Cameron Voorhees, Doug Julian, Colin Walker, David Jones, Austin DeGraw, Ryan Larsen, Brandon Wilson, and Chad Balls)

Little Sahara Campout 10/19-10/20 2012

Troop 1513 visited the Little Sahara last weekend. . . well almost.  We got to the state park entrance only to find out costs for entry have gone up significantly. It was our intent to camp outside the park anyway so the leaders felt the price per vehicle to be too excessive for the limited time we'd be at the dunes.  Before we had a chance to turn around and go in search of our own "off the beaten path" campsite, an ambulance zoomed into the ranger station to transfer an injured person to an approaching Air Med chopper from Mountain View.  The whole operation was impressive.  I wonder if Brent Jones eventually helped this individual?   

Activities that evening included tin foil dinners and hot coco, three rousing rounds of steal the flag, and spooky stories.  Best looking meal of the evening went to the Hoschouers who foiled up some breaded chicken breast and french fries smothered in BBQ sauce. Best reaction to a scary story goes to Brandon Wilson and Colin Walker, but admittedly, most of the boys looked like this little feller throughout the night:

The next morning, the boys enjoyed cold cereal and another toasty mug of hot coco (Vince has got the blend down to a science -- no better coco can be had in the upper 48).  Our plan after breakfast was to find the "back way" into the state park.  Sadly, some ranger spent entirely too much time and entirely too many tax dollers to put this up around the entire state park. 

As scouts do, we improvised.  We continued with the friendly competition from the night before and played daylight steal the flag.  At night, the leaders could use the cover of darkness to compensate for their lack of speed and agility when sprinting after boys.  Daylight put the advantage back into the hands our our much younger and spry advasaries.  I can't tell the difference between these kids and this critter:

Here are some additional photos from the weekend.  Enjoy.  Lastly, we'd like to thank John Hoschouer for his commitment and contributions to the SVV scounts and wish him well in his new assignment. 

Tristen is over joyed that he made it through the night after Tad's terrifying ghost story.

"Hey guys! The tent folds up too!  How 'bout that!" says, Colin.  Dallas quietly ponders, "who put this guy in charge?"

Austin and Brandon contemplate the benefits of getting out of bed. 

The boys suddenly realize if they tear down and move their tent two inches more to the left, they will be slightly less up hill and benefit more from sunlight in the morning.

Brandon contemplates Einstein's theory of relativity and concludes he must be wrong.

As a last hoorah (payback from the miseries of scout camp), John Hoschouer adds a secret ingredient to the hot coco.  Tristen says, "that's suppose to make the coco more chocolatie?".  In reply Brother Hoschouer matter-of-factly says, "yes, Tristen, it is". 

Throughout the campout, we had to tell the boys to tone down their spontaneous proclivity to dance an Irish jig.

The Three Amigos of not so famous acclaim.  We lost the Fourth Amigo somewhere between Eureka and Santaquin.   

Vince is about to demonstrate how to make an airplane out of a large blue tarp.  "It has to be blue" he says.  "The grey and red ones are too flimsy!".

Still at it, Brother Hoschouer adds one more ingredient to the coco and says, "This ought to do it".  At which Austin replies, "he said it was marshmellow syrup! Yum. . . "





The Story of One Good Turn

One day in 1909 in London, England, An American Visitor, William D. Boyce, lost his way in a dense fog. He stopped under a street lamp and tried to figure out where he was. A boy approached him and asked if he could be of help.

 

"You certainly can," said Boyce. He told the boy that he wanted to find a certain business office in the center of the city.

"I'll take you there," said the boy.

When they got to the destination, Mr. Boyce reached into his pocket for a tip. But the boy stopped him.

"No thank you, sir. I am a Scout. I won't take anything for helping."

"A Scout? And what might that be?" asked Boyce.

The boy told the American about himself and about his brother scouts. Boyce became very interested. After finishing his errand, he had the boy take him to the British Scouting office. At the office, Boyce met Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the famous British general who had founded the Scouting movement in Great Britain. Boyce was so impressed with what he learned that he decided to bring Scouting home with him.

On February 8, 1910, Boyce and a group of outstanding leaders founded the Boy Scouts of America. From that day forth, Scouts have celebrated February 8 as the birthday of Scouting in the United States.

What happened to the boy who helped Mr.Boyce find his way in the fog? No one knows. He had neither asked for money nor given his name, but he will never be forgotten. His Good Turn helped bring the scouting movement to our country.

In the British Scout Training Center at Gilwell Park, England, Scouts from the United States erected a statue of an American Buffalo in honor of this unknown scout. One Good Turn to one man became a Good Turn to millions of American Boys. Such is the power of a Good Turn.

Legolas We Were Not, But. . .

Troop 1513 took a divide and conquer approach to our activity last night.  We had a number of boys who joined with the 11-year old scouts to work on their compass work required for their 2nd Class rank.   The rest of the troop worked on the archery merit badge, some of which had nearly completed while at Camp Tifie. Good shooting, gents!

Special thanks for Cory Walker for hosting and running our range and to Kevin Goulding in helping us secure bows from the district.  Cory, when farmer Brown's sprinklers are off, let us know and we'll help find some of the errant arrows that went missing. 

If anyone is looking for a test of strength, seek out Mike "Muscle Man" Merrill and ask to draw back on his 70+ lb compound bow.  Not only did I struggle to draw the bow back during my turn, I think I heard Vince whisper to Mike, "boy if you think he's a sissy now, you should have heard him squeal when he thought a bear was outside his tent at Tifie". 

Official Tifie Year 4 Week 4 Camp Video

Scouts/Parents,

Here's the official camp video from our week at Tifie.  See if you can spot our scouts among the 700+ that were in attendance during our week!  Enjoy.

Troop 1513 Tifie Scout Camp 2012

We had a fun and successful week at camp this year.  The scouts completed 53 merit badges out of 70 attempted.  We had around 8 archery merit badges that were only lacking in a little range time of completion.  A few boys will need to complete the First Aid merit badge which is a requirement for the emergency preparedness merit badge.  Because of the wild fires we had an extra 5 troops from Scofield Scout Camp which double stacked some of our classes.  The boys spent their free time swimming, shooting and beating a deep path to the trading post for ice cream and drinks.

Our camp spot 'Bear' was in a perfect spot with lots of shade.  We were closest to most of the merit badges, swimming pool and the trading post but furthest from the shooting sports.  The boys enjoyed every meal except the slightly burned potatoes.

The camp director spent a lot of time with our troop playing a number counting game he said not many groups could make to number 20.  We finally made it to the high 30's with him on Friday afternoon.  Judging by the little free time he had, I think he spent most of it with our boys.

We split the boys into two patrols for this camp and it worked really good for chores, devotionals and troop organization.  The Sage Grouse and Grizzly patrol switched back and forth between the red and tan class B t-shirts each day so we could better identify the patrols by their color.  Tim and John each took a patrol under their wing and helped them with their duties through the week. 

The boys worked hard on a card board duck tape boat that they raced and took first place in.  Their race time across the pool was around 22 seconds.  The camps best time ever was 17 seconds.  I think the second best time for week 4 at Tifie this year was around 60 seconds.  Take a look at the previous blog that has a video showing just how fast they were.

We also won the Baden Powell award.  This award is given to one troop during the week that demonstrates scout spirit, service and a high score on uniforms and camp inspection.  We also won the spirit stick which only eight troops had the opportunity to obtain.

We had a real camp bear that hound dogs chased back and forth around our camp late at night and early in the morning.  I think Yogi Bear would have been proud of him.

By The Numbers: Camp Tifie

140:  The estimated number of visits made by our scouts to the trading post (10 per boy).
84:  The estimated number of ice cream treats consumed by our troop (6 per boy).
70:  The number of merit badges we attempted.
53:  The number of merit badges completed.
51:  The number of medical forms required for our troop to participate at camp.
45:  The number of sandwiches consumed by our scouts.
40:  The number of hamburger patties consumed by the troop and it's leaders.
28:  The highest level achieved in Crazy Craig's number game by our troop.
22:  The number of seconds it took to get "Slick Silver" from one end of an olympic-sized pool to the other (nearly a Tifie record).
18:  The number of times a boy had to sing to the troop for items left unattended (I actually lost track of this stat at 18).
17:  The number of partial merit badges.
14:  The number of 12-13 year-old-boys who attended camp.
7:  The number of square miles of ozone depleted by our troop over Camp Tifie.  No, seriously.
6:  The average number of times a boy was dunked by the "Killer Whale".
5:  The number of merit badge classes attended by each scout, the number of days to complete the Baden Powell Award for troops, and also the number of flag ceremonies attended by the troop.
4:  The number of adult leaders who attended part or all of camp and also the average number of times Crazy Cantankerous Carl of the rifle range yelled at our boys during camp.
3:  The number of cheese burger patties consumed at once by our smallest scout, the average number of times boys hiked across camp to visit the shooting range in a day, and the number of troop devotionals given.
2:  The number of boys Collin hugged when scared by a ghost story and the number of pair of socks lost or ruined by each boy.
1:  The recommended number of nights you can safely serve beanies and weenies to scouts in a 5 day period -- anymore than that could be disastrous.  Also, the number of times we won the coveted spirit stick for the troop who demonstrated the most scout spirit.
0:  The number of boys who attended camp that got sick, badly injured, or lost.

The Grizz and Grouse rule.  Thank you, boys.  We had a blast.  I think you all filled your box.