HISTORY OF COUNCILS IN THE BSA
FEATURED STATE: MISSOURI
By Ed Henderson
This feature begins a new segment for the Scouting E-Zine. Each issue we will focus on the history of Scouting in a different state. Many Scouters are curious about how long there council has been around, or when the last merger took place. Are you interested in your state's BSA Council History? Send us an e-mail at info@honorpub.com and tell us you want to see your state's scouting history researched and presented in our E-Zine.
Jason
Cruse, a Scouter in Hannibal MO asked about the history Missouri Councils.
Aside from the five councils with headquarters in Missouri:
St Louis Area Council (St. Louis MO) http://www.stlbsa.org/
Great Rivers (Columbia MO)
http://www.bsa-grc.org/
Heart of America (Kansas City MO) http://www.hoac-bsa.org/
Pony Express (Saint Joseph MO) http://www.ponyexpressbsa.org/
Ozark Trails (Springfield MO) http://www.ozarktrailsbsa.org/
The
only other council that extends itself into the state is:
Mississippi Valley (Quincy IL)
http://www.mississippivalleybsa.org/
There is one other Illinois Council, although it has no territory in the state, DOES have a scout camp property inside the state line. That would be the Trails West Council's Camp Sunnen. Councils often have camp properties outside their boundaries, even in other states.
The "Show Me" state is anchored by two Metro Councils (the largest classification ranking for the size of councils, sometimes called a Class 56 Council) in HOAC (Heart of America Council - Kansas City) & GSLAC (Greater Saint Louis Area Council) but there have been a number of mergers over the past quarter century.
In
1974 Kansas City KS & Kansas City MO merged to form HOAC. This had
the added effect of merging into one council both the Order of the Arrow
(http://www.oa-bsa.org/) and the
Tribe of Mic-O-Say (http://www.hoac-bsa.org/TribeofMic-O-Say/)
the two honor camper programs.
HOAC now reaches into nearly as much Kansas territory as it has in Missouri
and it retains the Missouri side's H. Roe Bartle Scout Reservation (Iconium,
MO) where only the Mic-O-Say program is practiced as well as the old Kaw
River Valley Council (Kansas City KS) Camp Nashe where the council's O.A.
Lodge calls home.
Joplin's Mo-Kan Council had to merge in July of 1994 with Springfield's Ozarks Council to form Ozark Trails. This council also reaches into Kansas and covers a large chunk of southern Missouri along the Ozark Mountains. The council retains both of the former two council's main camps: Camp Arrowhead, the oldest continuously operating Boy Scout Camp, west of the Mississippi and Frank Childress Scout Reservation just outside of Joplin on the 71 Highway. The council has two satellite offices in Rolla and Joplin besides its primary service center in Springfield.
Pony Express Council is one of only two councils in the USA with no Order of the Arrow program. It operates only the Mic-O-Say program which has done very well for its Camp Geiger. Geographically it is the smallest of the Missouri Councils and it has a relatively small reach into Kansas. It was founded with it's current name in 1932.
Great Rivers Council includes a significant portion of the central part of the state and has remain the among the most unchanged in terms of boundaries having kept its current name since 1951. You have to go back to 1971 when the Lake of the Ozarks Council out of Jefferson City was merged with the Central Missouri Area Council to find any additions to that council. The council has two primary camps: Camp Thunderbird 7 miles east of Cairo, MO in the northern part of the state and Hohn Scout Reservation on the Lake of the Ozarks.
The
most rapid expansion of any council in the Show Me state is obviously
what is now the Greater Saint Louis Area Council. In 1993 & 1995 it
more than doubled it's territory with two smaller council merger acquisitions.
In July of 1993, facing financial pressures in the economically depressed
south-eastern part of the state, the Cape Girardeau based Southeast Missouri
Area Council was compelled to merged into Saint Louis Council (keeping
the same name). The council retains to this day a service center in Cape
Girardeau and its council boundary goes all the way to the Arkansas &
Tennessee state lines. Two years later in May of 1995 a similarly distressed
Egyptian Council over in Illinois also merged into Saint Louis, this time
provoking a name change to the current Greater Saint Louis Area Council.
The council now has quite a collection of camp properties from the two
mergers including the recent additions of Pine Ridge Scout Camp in Illinois,
and Camp Lewallen from the Southeast Missouri Area Council. To its credit,
the council has not sold off any primary camps and has heavily invested
into the properties it acquired in merger. GSLAC had several very good
camps it brought with it before the mergers including Beaumont Scout Reservation,
The John S. Swift Explorer Base. and the massive S-F Scout Ranch. It also
has the Trails West Council's Camp Sunnen within it's boundaries.
If
you are ever interested in finding what council a particular community
lies in, you can visit:
http://www.scouting.org/councils/index.html
Here you can punch in any zip code or city name and get the corresponding council. Some council's have maps of their council boundaries. National BSA's Engineering Services has a very detailed large scale national map of all councils in the USA. You may find it at a National Camp School or Jamboree but it is not the kind of document you are likely to find at a Council Service Center.
All
of the Missouri Councils are strong and financially stable. With the exception
of the two metro councils, all of the councils in Kansas and Missouri
are in Area Six. Each year the area director, Loren Swenson, does a Powerpoint
presentation on the relative health and strength of each council. If you
have PowerPoint 2000 or a viewer (free viewer is available from the Microsoft
website) You can see the presentation with all of the council bar charts
and comparisons. Go to this link for more information:
http://www.sftcbsa.org/sftc-1996-2000.htm
Jason,
at one time back in the depression days, your town of Hannibal MO also
had its own council too. From 1928 to 1937 the Tom Sawyer Council was
active in Hannibal.
Ed Henderson
The
author maintains the links at NetRoster,
Scout
Camp Database and the ScoutCamp.org
for South Carolina. For corrections contact him at BigEd@usscouts.org
Where would you like the staff at the Scouting E-Zine to take you next,
write us at info@honorpub.com
and tell us which state's history you want to read about in our next issue!