Saturday dawned windy and chilly, but that didn’t daunt more than two dozen members of Cub Scout Pack 1, who turned out for the group’s annual bake sale.
As drivers waited at the stoplight on Highway 45 N. in front of Kroger, the boys waved signs and plastic buckets, offering sweet temptation in the form of cupcakes, cookies, homemade preserves and other treats.
Last year, the Cubs raised more than $700 for their annual Cub and Family Weekend, and this year, they’re hoping to do the same. The event, which will be held Oct. 22-23 at Camp Seminole in Starkville, will draw anywhere from 600 to 800 Cub Scouts from the 10-county Pushmataha Area Council, said Cubmaster Nancy Harper.
With the sluggish economy, and changes in the family unit, many members of her pack are not able to afford the $20 per person fee to attend the fall retreat, so the bake sale fills the financial gaps, paying the way for her Cubs, Harper said. About half the children live in single parent households, and several are being raised by grandparents. Earlier in the week, Harper went through her closet and culled old uniforms for those Cubs who can’t afford the $25-$35 cost per shirt.
The Cub and Family Weekend gives families the opportunity to enjoy time outdoors together while also exposing the Cubs to children from other packs, many of whom they have never met. Attending camp teaches them skills like archery and BB gun shooting, while instilling deeper lessons about teamwork and getting along with others.
“They love it,” Paul Steinport said of his sons, Dominic Steinport, 9, and Nicholas Steinport, 7. “They do all kinds of stuff — archery, BB guns, rope tying, fire safety, boat safety, first aid — all that outdoorsy stuff.”
Over the past two years, Steinport, an instructor pilot at Columbus Air Force Base, has noticed a change in his sons’ behavior as well. A quick reminder — “That’s not proper behavior for a Scout” — is usually all that’s needed to keep them in line, he said.
As the boys listened to him speak, they grinned at each other and tucked their starched shirts a little deeper into their pants.
“It’s fantastic,” Steinport said. “It’s a great program.”
That is what has kept Harper involved over the past 12 years. She and her husband, Roger Harper, first became involved when their son, Tyler Harper, was in the second grade. The 19-year-old earned the rank of Eagle Scout last October.
“(Scouting) builds self-confidence and gives a sense of being involved in something, belonging to something,” Harper said. “It helps them learn different skills, learn to follow directions and be polite. My boys in my pack know I don’t like ‘yep’ or ‘nope.’ It’s ‘yes’ or ‘yes, ma’am,’ and they say it, or they learn to real quick.”
The discipline, and the sense of belonging to something bigger themselves, helps keep them out of trouble in later years, Harper said.
That was the case for Timothy Greer, who stopped to buy a mixture of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes from the Cub Scouts. As a child growing up in Memphis, Greer went through all the ranks of Scouting, and he said he was glad to stop and offer support to the Columbus pack.
Just knowing someone cares can help a child in immeasurable ways, he said.
“The Scout leaders sometimes have kids of their own, but they take time with you, and that’s kind of special,” Greer said as he paid for his purchase. “The Scout leaders were like fathers … and fathers away from fathers. They picked up the slack when our fathers were busy working. We loved it as kids.”
As for Harper, she estimated that she has guided nearly 300 young Cub Scouts through the ranks, and it is still as rewarding as when she began.
“It’s just fun to me,” she said. “It keeps me young.”
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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