Wachtschu Mawachpo Lodge 559
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LODGE HISTORY OF WACHTSCHU MAWACHPO LODGE 559 ORDER OF THE ARROW WESTARK AREA COUNCIL Revised and updated May 2019 This history is dedicated to the memory of all Lodge 559 Arrowmen who have gone before us who best exemplified the Order’s virtues of selfless cheerful service This history is further dedicated to the youth Arrowmen of today who will become the leaders of tomorrow 2 CONTENTS Foreword ................................................................................................................................... 4 Preface ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Westark Area Council History ................................................................................................ 6 Lodge History ........................................................................................................................... 7 Founding of the Lodge ............................................................................................................ 7 Regions and Sections of the Lodge ......................................................................................... 8 Section Officers ....................................................................................................................... 8 National Officers ..................................................................................................................... 8 National Awards ....................................................................................................................... 9 Centurion Award .................................................................................................................... 9 Distinguished Service Award ............................................................................................... 10 E. Urner Goodman Camping Award .................................................................................... 10 Lodge Awards ......................................................................................................................... 11 Founders Award ................................................................................................................... 11 Arrowman of the Year Award ............................................................................................... 14 James E. West Fellowship ..................................................................................................... 16 The Bowstring Society .......................................................................................................... 18 Lodge Leadership .................................................................................................................. 21 Lodge Chiefs ........................................................................................................................ 21 Lodge Advisers..................................................................................................................... 24 Vigil Honor Members of Lodge 559...................................................................................... 25 3 FOREWORD “The spirit, as I understand it, is the real self of the individual helping himself to understand the world he lives in; helping to do what he thinks he ought to do in the future before him. It is a thing that is hard to set forth in so many words, but it is facing life as we understand it and that sometimes takes more than just pride and smartness of thinking, but it requires divine guidance and help to do our best; and that is what I pray for in the years that are ahead for the Arrowmen as they face the future…feeling that God will help them to do that which our Country needs and do it with devotion in the brotherhood of cheerful service.” Dr. E. Urner Goodman – 1976 These words from our founder still ring true today as they did over forty years ago. In an age in which artificial electronic friendship is the norm and donating to a fundraising website is seen as service, our core values of genuine brotherhood and real, face-to-face service performed cheerfully and selflessly may seem to be an anachronism to most outsiders. We as Arrowmen stubbornly persist in sticking to the harder path because we understand that our country and the world needs the sort of values that we learn in Scouting and the Order of the Arrow. We believe in a future where we are guided not by self-interest but by our concern for the welfare and needs of others. As we set forth in this, our Order’s second century, let us remember the admonition of our founder: “Things of the spirit are what count: brotherhood – in a day when there is too much hatred at home and abroad; cheerfulness – in a day when the pessimists have the floor and cynics are popular; service – in a day when millions are interested in getting or grasping, rather than giving.” Wachtschu Mawachpo lodge is a relatively young lodge, but we have a rich history of service both within Scouting and without. From region chiefs to ordinary Arrowmen, from grizzled Vigil Honor members to brand-new twelve-year-old Ordeal members, we all should be proud of our lodge and its accomplishments. We hope that this history will both memorialize the lodge’s past and inspire future generations of Arrowmen to reach new heights of cheerful service. 4 PREFACE Welcome to the revised and updated lodge history of Wachtschu Mawachpo Lodge 559! The lodge has spent countless hours researching and updating this history, consulting both national and local records and sources to ensure that it is as accurate as possible. However, some of those sources are incomplete for a variety of reasons, so this history necessarily is incomplete as well. You can help us to make this history as complete as possible. We would like to have any names, dates, anecdotes, or other information that can broaden and enrich our history, because, after all, this is your history. If you have anything that can help the lodge fill in the gaps in our history, please contact the lodge using the contact information on the council or lodge website. Please send updates or missing information to the contact information for the lodge adviser and lodge historian adviser. NOTE: As Arrowmen and Scouts, we are expected to live up to the high ideals of the Scout Oath and Law and the Obligation of our Order. Accordingly, Arrowmen who are ineligible for membership in the Boy Scouts of America or are listed as ineligible members in the national Order of the Arrow database because of personal conduct or other reasons are not listed in this history. 5 WESTARK AREA COUNCIL HISTORY Westark Area Council originally was organized in July 1920. The territory at that time included only the city of Fort Smith and the name of council was “Fort Smith Council”. Early in 1922, the council territory was extended to include the city of Van Buren. The council then became known as the “Fort Smith-Van Buren Council”. The council boundaries remained unchanged for five years until the council re-registered in January 1927. At that time, the council was extended to include all of Crawford and Sebastian Counties, together with that portion of Franklin County south of the Arkansas River. The council’s name remained unchanged. In December 1928, the council took over thirteen additional counties, which included the Counties of Polk, Pope, and Scott and the ten counties that had previously constituted the “Ozark Council” in the northwest part of Arkansas. These additional counties were Benton, Washington, Carroll, Boone, Madison, Newton, Franklin (north half), Johnson, Logan, and Yell. The Council was re-registered in 1929 under the name of the “Northwest Arkansas Council”. This was changed at re-registration time in 1930 to the “Fort Smith Area Council”. Since the time of the Council’s re-registration in 1937, the Council has been known as the “Westark Area Council”. On June 23, 1947, the Council was incorporated in the State of Arkansas as the “Westark Area Council, Inc., Boy Scouts of America”. During the 1950s and 1960s, several changes to the makeup of Westark Area Council occurred. In January 1955 Mena and Polk Counties were transferred to the Caddo Council in Texarkana, Arkansas. For a brief time beginning in 1953, Pope County became a part of Quapaw Area Council before returning to Westark in January 1957. Finally, Fulton County transferred to Eastern Arkansas Area Council on August 1, 1965. The Westark Area Council today consists of the following counties: Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Logan, Madison, Marion, Newton, Pope, Scott, Searcy, Sebastian, Washington, and Yell. A campaign for the building of a new Boy Scout camp was conducted in 1953 and 1954. Land for the camp was purchased and developed into Camp Orr. Camp Orr has been in use since 1955 and covers approximately 600 acres within the Buffalo National River. Camp Orr is the only Boy Scout camp situated within a national park. Camp Orr features access to the Buffalo River and the Buffalo River Trail. In addition to traditional summer camp activities, Camp Orr also recently developed nearly twenty miles of mountain biking trails within the camp property. The Scout Service Center in Fort Smith was built in 1963. The State Legislature passed a bill on March 1973, permitting the Westark Area Council to purchase 2,842 acres of Booneville Sanatorium land for future camp development. The drive to develop this land began in the fall of 1975 and completed