A Scoutmaster's Blog

I was having lunch with my dad today when I noticed he had a copy of the American Legion magazine laying on his coffee table. I picked up the January 2020 issue and paged through it while we were eating our chicken fries. There were several good articles but one page really caught my attention.

A page named “Still Serving America” had several interesting facts, most about how the American Legion financially supported various groups over the years. The last fact did not list any dollar amounts but did list an interesting number. Did you know that a minimum of 45,373 Boy Scouts were sponsored worldwide by the American Legion in the most recent membership year? That is a lot of Scouts! (The page did not say anything about if this was just Boy Scouts or if Cub Scouts were included in that number so I think it may have just been Boy Scouts.)

The factoid did not list the ways the Legion sponsored these Scouts but I am sure many of those Scouts’ troops were sponsored by a local Legion club. We all know that the American Legion and the V.F.W. sponsor many troops and packs across the country. In Melrose, the Legion is the charter sponsor of the Cub Scout Pack while VFW post 7050 is the charter sponsor of the Boy Scout troop. Both units have also received financial support from the other club.

The Scouts, parents, and leadership of Boy Scout Troop 68 and Cub Scout Pack 68 would like to thank the American Legion for their support over the last 40 years and hope we can work together in our community for the next 40 years.

Melrose Boy Scout Troop 68 became well known locally for performing campfire songs and skits in the 1980s and 1990s. The scouts had a great time performing and started getting good at creating revised and new songs and skits. The troop was even asked to chair a district Camporee campfire and did a fantastic job.

In 1996, the troop took their love of campfire programs to the next level. The troop decided to create a two hour campfire style show to be held at the Melrose high school auditorium. The show would be open to the public. The Scouts asked people to bring a nonperishable food item for the local food shelf. Thus the name Laughs For Lunch was created. The troop would provide the laughs as the audience members brought the lunch for those in need. It turned into a nice food drive.

The Laughs For Lunch show became a tradition that lasted for 13 years. While most of the audience were family members and friends of troop members, there were also people from neighboring towns. Boy Scouts of other troops would attend, including a troop from the Twin Cities who attended for a couple of years.

As Troop membership began to decline through the early 2000’s we found it more difficult to keep the show going each year. I believe the final show was held in January 2008. It was sad to see the tradition come to an end.

Membership in both the Cub Scout pack and the Boy Scout troop begin increasing once again in the mid 2010’s. During the troop’s yearly program planning session held in August 2017, the youth leadership decided to bring back the Laughs For Lunch Show. Both the committee chairperson and I were glad to see it returned to the schedule.

Bringing the show back would be a challenge. Over eight years had gone by since the last show. Not one of the current Boy Scouts were members of the troop when the last show was held. Only three members of the adult leadership were still involved with the troop. The scouts would have to learn nearly everything, both the skits and the songs.

As planning for the 2018 show began we quickly decided to cut the program down to an hour long. This proved to be a smart decision since we would only have four practice meetings of two hours each to prepare. The Scouts worked hard learning the songs and skits. They did great on the day of the show. The Boy Scouts and the audience had a great time.

When the patrol leader council held their yearly planning session last August they scheduled another Laughs For Lunch Show for January 26, 2019. The performing bug had bit the Scouts and they were ready to do a second show.

On Sunday, December 30, troop members got together to plan this month’s new show. And I do mean new. Nearly every skit and song would be new to the current Boy Scouts, similar to how it was with last year’s show. They also decided to lengthen the show by adding a few more songs and skits. The 2019 show could end up about 90 minutes long.

Like I mentioned earlier, there will only be four practices again to prepare. Each practice will be two hours long. The Scouts will have to work hard, but if previous years are any indication they will do very well and have another successful Laughs For Lunch Show.

The Melrose Chamber of Commerce sponsors a Spring Expo each year which is held at the Melrose School gymnasium. This year’s Expo was held on Saturday, April 14th. Even though the Minnesota weather was not very nice that day there was a good turnout for the event, both in Expo booths and visitors.

The parents of one of the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 had registered to have a booth for their business and asked the troop if they would also like to have a booth. Since they were both going to be there all day the troop would have the two deep leadership requirement covered. The troop was also asked to provide assistance to the people who had a booth as they brought their items into the gym at the start of the Expo and help to carry out items at the end of the Expo.

It has been 13 years since the troop has been a participant of the Melrose Expo. Our booth back then was full of Scouting memorabilia and literature. It even had a television playing videos of various troop activities. This year’s booth was more modest and was put together the night before the Expo. We included some photo albums, literature, and a couple shadow boxes of memorabilia. The booth was located in the first aisle and it did get some attention from folks as they walked by. Who knows, maybe the troop could get a new member or two to join. The best part of having a booth of course, is that it was one more way to get the Scouting program into the public eye and let people know that yes, Scouting does still exist in Melrose.

The planners of the Expo, and the people who had booths at the Expo, really appreciated having the Boy Scouts there to assist them before and after the event. The Melrose Chamber of Commerce was very impressed with the Scouts and even offered to give a $50 donation to the troop for their work. It was a great example of demonstrating that a Scout is Helpful.

Does your troop participate in local city Expos? What do they do? Leave a comment below and let us know what your Scouts have been up to in their community.

The Melrose Lions Club invites volunteers from the city’s various organizations to attend an annual dinner to recognize and commend them for their service to the community.The firemen, police reserves, and ambulance personnel are invited as well as the volunteers of the area food shelf, Project Give-A-Gift, Meals On Wheels, Melrose Area Museum, and other groups. The Melrose Boy Scout Troop and Cub Scout Pack were well represented this year by seven people, including the scoutmaster and cubmaster.

It is a fun time to visit while having a great meal. This year’s dinner included chicken, roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn, rolls, and cookies. If anyone left that dinner hungry they had no one to blame but themselves.

After the meal, the president of the Melrose Lions Club thanked everyone for attending, and for their service to the citizens of Melrose. Another Lions members walked around the room with a microphone so that every volunteer could introduce themselves and state which organization they assisted. Nearly 100 people attended the meal.

The evening ended with one member of each organization going to the front of the room to receive a numbered ticket. A drawing was held for three $100 prizes. The first number drawn went to the Melrose Boy Scout Troop. The second prize went to the Melrose Food Shelf. The third went to the Girl Scouts.

The membership and leadership of Boy Scout Troop 68 and Cub Scout Pack 68 would like to thank the Lions Club for a great meal, and for the support they have given the Melrose Scouting program for nearly 40 years.

The carnival came to Melrose during the weekend of September 8-9. It was not brought to town by the Chamber of Commerce or any local service groups. It was brought to town by a group of of people in town who felt Melrose needed a fall event to bring its citizens together for a weekend of fun and excitement. The two day event also included several vendor booths, live music, and a classic car show.

The parents of one of the Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 were two of the people who organized this event. They asked the troop to assist with one of the activities in which children could purchase a ticket for 50 cents to play one of several games to win a prize. The money raised would go to the local food shelf. It looked like it would be a fun service project for the Boy Scouts.

There were five games the Scouts would be in charge of running. One was a Hot Wheels toy car race track. The other games were bottle ring toss, a bean bag toss, a bottle set up challenge, and a disc golf putting challenge. Early on it appeared that we may have trouble finding enough Scouts to work the games but when the day arrived we had plenty of help, along with a few parents.

The games were only open for four hours Saturday afternoon but they did very well. The Scouts had fun along with the children who played the games. Even a few parents got into the spirit of trying their skills. Over $120 was raised for the local food shelf. It was a pretty good, and pretty fun service project.

A year and a half ago I wrote a couple of articles about how the Melrose Boy Scout Troop had inspired the Melrose city officials to think about having a nine basket disc golf course installed in the main city park. A quickly planned but simple service project activity during the city’s 2014 Night To Unite evening started the ball rolling on something I would have liked to have seen in town two decades earlier. You can read these posts Here and Here.

It recently occurred to me that I did not write any follow up articles to let you all know how things turned out. As stated in one of the earlier posts, I thought the Boy Scouts would assist in helping the city staff assemble the course equipment and installing it in the park. Well, it did not quite happen that way. The city park staff assembled everything themselves during the winter months, and installed all the signs and baskets early in the spring while the Scouts were still in school. At least a couple of the Scouts, who happened to be working on their Citizenship in the Community merit badge, were able to assist in creating the tee signs for each hole.

The Sauk River Park disc golf course was finished the first Monday of May in 2015. On a rainy night two weeks later, the Boy Scouts were present with various city and park officials for the official ribbon cutting. As the person who did a lot of the planning and design work for the park, I was given a scissors to cut the ribbon. Then the Scouts lined up for a picture throwing their discs at the basket for the local paper. The adults that were present also lined up for a similar picture. The newspaper did a great write up about the course.

The disc golf course received a good amount of use during the year of 2015. The local teenagers started making use of the course immediately, and many families discovered it was an activity they could do together. Even the high school started using the course as a Phys Ed activity since the course is located across the street from the school. Both city officials and the park board were happy with the use the course was getting, which made me feel good after the time and effort I had poured into the project. Not many people get to say they brought something to their city which everyone can play and have fun doing.

A few weeks ago we began a disc golf league in Melrose. There are about fourteen people in the league, most of them teenagers, and four of them Boy Scouts. There is even one Cub Scout and his father who play. Ages range from 9 years old to 55 years old. We have been having a great time playing and meeting the new members. I just wish I would have thrown a bit better last week, but then, we all wish to do better than we usually do when we play.

I sometimes still find it hard to believe that this course happened because of a little project in the park one night prepared by the Boy Scouts. It just goes to show, you never know…

This year marked the eighth year that the Boy Scouts of Melrose Troop 68 have handed out 4″ x 6″ United States flags before the Riverfest parade in Melrose. Once again the Scouts walked along the parade route and gave away 1250 flags, curtesy of the Melrose American Legion. People love receiving them, from the youngest toddler to the oldest senior citizen. And they are better for you than all the Tootsie Rolls that are thrown out during the parade, don’t you agree?

Last year we had a shortage of Boy Scouts attend the service project so this year we invited the Cub Scout to help out, hoping we would get enough Scouts to break up into four teams. The plan was to have two teams start on each end of the parade route, each team taking one side of the street, and meet up somewhere in the middle. Hopefully, by the time we would meet, we would be out of flags.

We ended up with plenty of Scouts. Six Cub Scouts and five Boy Scouts showed up for the project, in addition to five parents and Scout leaders. About 30 minutes before the parade was scheduled to begin, we split up and began handing out the flags. My team consisted of three Cub Scout brothers who were excited to participate in such a project. They were all smiles as they handed out the flags one by one, receiving smiles in return from the people who accepted them.

My team was starting to run low on flags by the time we met up with the Scouts who had started at the other end of the route. They still had a few hundred flags due to many people not being seated yet for the parade as they walked by. I had noticed a lot of people coming in after we had walked by a our route so my team took the extra flags and started retracing our steps, handing out flags to people who had recently arrived along the parade route. We even had a couple kids run across the street to get flags from us.

By the time we got to the spot were the Cub Scout’s parents were sitting for watching the parade, we had handed out all the flags. And just in time. The honor guard that was leading the parade was marching only a few blocks away from us. The parade had started. The only thing the Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and leadership had left to do was to sit back and enjoy the parade. And eat the Tootsie Rolls thrown to us, of course.

The Melrose Lions Club holds a special dinner every year to recognize volunteers in the community. This year’s dinner was held on the evening of April 27th at the Melrose American Legion. Over 100 people from nearly a dozen volunteer organizations were represented, which included the local food shelf, Project Give-A-Gift, Meals On Wheels, the fire department, the ambulance department, the police reserve reserve, and others. Boy Scout Troop 68 and Cub Scout Pack 68 were each represented by three adult leaders.

At the end of the evening, after a great meal and a guest speaker, the Lions Club held a drawing for three $100 donations. Boy Scout Troop 68 was lucky enough to receive one of these gifts. Scoutmaster Jim Engelmeyer, along with committee chairperson Chris Massmann and assistant scoutmaster Eymard Orth, accepted the donation.

The Melrose Lions Club has been one of the community’s great sponsors of the Scouting program in Melrose.