Wednesday, October 30, 2013

A Century of Honor - 100 Years of LDS Scouting

Last night was the awesome celebration of 100 years of LDS Scouting called A Century of Honor.  I encourage you if you have not seen it, to take the time and watch it.  It was AWESOME!!!  As I have watched it for the second time this morning I can't help but still feel inspired and believe that the Scouting program should still be a part of the LDS Young Men's Program.

What really set me in the mood was this Scout........  Do you see what he is wearing on his uniform???



That is right.  It is the Denali Award.  While he was still wearing Boy Scout loops, a Senior Patrol Leader position patch and a merit badge in a weird position, it was a great sight for me personally.  In fact, I saw a lot of orange loops last night.

There were lots of examples of bad uniforming last night including the Primary General President who looked like she had just bought her shirt for this event (plus we all know her 2nd Counselor is in charge of Cub Scouting).  It was "straight out of the box".  One thing I think this ceremony missed is an opportunity to encourage training for "know it all" Scout leaders.  But that is beside the point.  It was just still AWESOME!!  Here are some of my Tweets.

Yes my hash-tag was wrong.
These 5 Scouts became the storytellers for last nights event and they did an AWESOME job!!
I really enjoyed the stories from the older men who were Scouts who talked about how they helped the efforts of WWII, the songs they sang and how they enjoyed eating as Scouts.  The story of the Scouts with artificial legs who hiked even with bloody stumps who wanted no shortcuts to Eagle brought me to tears.

I had three Varsity Scouts in attendance with me (that is half my Team).  It was a late night as the program started at 8 PM for us and I promised ice cream afterwards.  I asked the boys what they learned and after we all joked about wanting to see rappelling and mid-air kayaking at next General Conference, my Varsity Captain put me on the floor with his reply.  "Scouting is more than just a program.  It is a way of life."  Couldn't have been said better myself.

The all Eagle Scout Choir sang part of my favorite hymn - Nearer My God to Thee.   It was great to see all those Scouts.  Our Stake had many Scouts watching too.

Scouting was and still is inspired.  Plain and simple.  No matter what troubles the BSA has gone through, this program is still trying to make the young men that participate better men prepared for life.  Values are timeless.

3 comments:

Evenspor said...

I loved the, "Mom, You Earned Your Eagle," song, of course, but my favorite part was the fact that the boys did most of it, and they did a great job. What a great example to Scoutmasters of what boys can do.

I am also thrilled that we had more than 100 (maybe even closer to 150) people at our stake center (between the two stakes and the community), which was twice what we were hoping. We had to send the primary president out for more root beer and ice cream when we saw how many people were showing up.

All in all, a great nught.

Eric the Half-bee said...

LIKE! It was a great event, and your tweets captured very well many of the same thoughts I had.

Fishgutts said...

I had really low expectations and almost didn't go but glad I went and glad I took my Team with me!!!