The Evolution of Post 52

Two weeks ago I posted a synopsis of the evolution of the Post on the secret web site.  It was broken down into four phases.  Last week I sent Trey a copy of Camping with Jack to be put into pdf format.  This will allow more people to access CWJ in a much easier manner.  Likewise it now may be possible to get Boyd Stories into a pdf format as well. 

Boyd Stories were essays that people who knew jack sent in after he died.  Some of these have been edited for content and clarity.  The goal is for the reader will be able to understand the particular story about Jack without knowing Jack or being there.   Publishing the raw copy verbatim runs the risk of the information being taken out of context.  The ultimate goal is to illustrate how Jack created the leadership model that he used.  We want people to understand the lessons that Jack taught in terms of real life situations.

The four phases of the evolution of Post 52  cite the events and happenings that forged Post 52.  These phases show how the post changed over the years.  It leaves a lot of room for people to fill in the blanks as well deals with many of the personalities that affected the path the post took at various junctures.

I hope that the round table videos from last winter can be put  on the site very soon.  I have not seen the videos, but am fairly certain that they will complement the four phases of the post's evolution.

Chris Callaway

Content Needed

Ever feel like you're not getting the reception you were looking for?

Recently Chris provided a document with a nice assortment of info that we can certainly put to good use. Great stuff!

Meanwhile, there are still a lot of empty pages to fill. When people get a minute, it would be great if they would please go through the menus and see what is needed.

We may be a bunch of folks either approaching middle age or well beyond it, and we all have a lot going on in our lives, but if everyone could dedicate a few minutes of their time now and then, scouts of the future will benefit from this.

Thanks!

–MDG

Dick McCollum on Jack Boyd

My brother and I were in  Troop 21 with Jack Boyd in the late 40;s and early  50’s.

He was  thin and wiry and very devoted to scouting. Sometimes he was riled up but his overall demeanor  was that of calm and equanimity which is a characteristic of a true  leader and that  was what I admired the most as I reflect back to our scouting days in Troop 21 with Jack Boyd.

He was proud of his service in WWII and I think it was the Army, as he loved to  sing  some of the Army songs  such as  “ sound off…”

I  remember one camping  trip  near Fort Worth where we lay on our  sleeping bags looking at the sky as Jack describe the  stars and the constellations . He love this as we learned to do also. The memory of this is clear as day.

Charley and I both became Eagles and spent many nights at Worth Ranch as well as summers at Philmont.

I do not think I  appreciated my own scouting experience then as much as I do now. The life lesions that scouting  gave me proved a marvelous foundation  as we grew into men and faced the  challenges of the real world.

Fred Moyer

Fred Moyer's parents were both killed in a car accident near Clarendon, Texas.

 August 1969 Sommers Trip

John Whitten advising Joe Jursa Sr.

Brian "Peannuts" Austin, Richard Railey, ?, Joe Jursa, J D Whitten, D Bennett, C Callaway, H Boyd, J Jursa Sr.

Post 52 late 60s early 70s

Chris Callaway Canada 1969

Chris Callaway Colorado 1967

Executive Committee campout WR 1969

Post 52 Exhibit Scoutorama 1969

1970 David Young standing on the Raton Turntable, it was removed and the roundhouse torn down two years later.

Allen Edmonds in the Raton turntable doghouse 1970 on the way to Philmont

Chris Callaway, Johnny Day Whitten, Homer Boyd 1969 return from Canada

Bruce Williams, David Young, Paul Holte Canada 1971

Canada 1969 Homer Boyd, Johnny Day Whitten, Guide

Arkansas 1967 John Runnion, Mark Smith

Ed. Note: These photos have been restored and are in the process of being
posted in the galleries for Post 52, Road Trips, Philmont and Sommers.

I have attached a lot of old photos with captions.  This is the first ski trip.  We camped at the P A Mertain Ranch.  This was Mike Martin's uncle. 


Chris Callaway

First Post 52 ski trip to Taos

Larry Ivy

David Potts

Gary Mills, Pete Normand, Mike Martin, Larry Kleinschmidt, P A Mertin

Gary Mills

Gary Mills, Larry Kleinschmidt

Ed. Note: These photos have been restored and are
in the process of being posted in the Ski Trips gallery.

Taos Ski Trip

Cannot say exactly what year it was, 75 or 76 maybe.

December History Roundtable

We had a nice gathering at Robert's on December 28th and were able to cover a fair amount of ground. Dink brought a box full of interesting historic materials and we made plans to organize the gathering and compilation of content for the website. Robert also provided a whopping 24 GB of photos, courtesy of Allen Schup. The first batch of photos (a set of 149 Worth Ranch photos taken by Jack way back in the days of Captain Kidd) is up on the Worth Ranch historic photos gallery. We could use some help identifying people in the photos.

We could also use some team leaders (very, very part time) to poke the hoarders of historic materials into coughing up their Nishkin and Post treasures so that we could go through them and write some articles.

Mission Statement:

We also decided that it is time to draft a mission statement to guide us in the development of the site.

We could use some suggestions for the statement. To get the ball rolling, here are some starter ideas (wide open for modification, deletion, etc):

• Preserve the history of the Post and related units
• Preserve the history of Nishkin
• Provide a human story of life in a vibrant, thriving family of Scout units
• Promote the Scouting program via content that is informative, inspiring and fun

There you go. Write something and we can edit it as a group.

The next roundtable is tentatively planned for mid-February. We'll let you know the date when things firm up.

New Additions

— Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has contributed new material.

January 1: Titles added to Jack's WR photos
December 28th: Jack's photos of Worth Ranch from the 1940's — Allen Schup
December 23: Caro's: No Ai Governmento – Chris Callaway
December 23: Tall Tales: The Door to Nowhere – Chris Callaway
December 14: Tall Tales: The Cowpatty Wars

November 29:

Slide Shows

We have added a number of new slide shows and beefed up others, with the content drawn from the 2005 Reunion DVD. These include:

• OA Gallery - a bunch of photos including (naturally) some from the 52nd anniversary of the OA.
• OA Patch Collection - a huge collection of over 200 patches. We need captions for these and we also need to know who the collector was so that we can give credit where credit is due.
• Post 52 Photo Assortment - a collection of various photos, with a few duplications from other slide shows. We need captions for these as well. If any of the photos need to be moved to other galleries, let us know.
• Troop 52 Photos - some of the captions are a bit sketchy. If anyone can provide more details, that would be very helpful. Also, captions such as "JB0037.jpg" don't have a lot of panache, so we could use some help with these.
• Charles L. Sommers - We now have a great start but we could use some more.
• Troop and Post 21 Photos - We'd added more content and expect to have more to add over the next couple of months
• Ski Trips (additional photos) - If anyone can provide names for the captions, we'd appreciate it.
• Moe Dean Gunch - Hanging out with his buddies.

Videos

In addition to the Moe Dean video under the Personalities section of the site, we now have three videos posted in "The Good Stuff" section. They are from volume I of the 2005 Reunion DVD. The videos include:

• The trailer for the 2005 reunion video DVD (a preview of the "volume II" two-disk DVD set). It's a really great video, so if you did not obtain a copy of the volume I DVD you are in for a treat.
• A John Whitten recitation of The Shooting of Dan McGrew from March 1983. (This is classic, grizzled Whitten fare – best viewed when sitting out back wearing a bear skin while picking your teeth with a crusty old bowie knife).
• The opening clip from the DVD – A send-up of the rose petal scene from American Beauty, with Moe Dean in the Kevin Spacey role.

Captions from Chris

Here are some photo captions from Chris Callaway. I don't have time to put them properly into the galleries at the moment, so I'll post them here for now:


Troop 21_1959_June
They grayhound bus is post 1963, it looks like they are loading out for Arkansas.  TCU has taken over the gold course and the new BDS is operating.

T22221_OldCol_     This is early 1960s on a day hike followed by a cow patty war.  this could be 1963

Troop52
1963_JulyT52_03 jpg  This is the colorado trip in '63 the last time we camped outside the Sand Isabell Nat'l Forrest  I can id a few of the people.  TRavis Hazelwood broke his back falling off one of the fins (volcanic dikes)

Colorado Trip '64 in Andrix COlorado  the photo is detailed elsewhere.  THis is the first time I can remember that the acting SPL had no troop 52 experience - that was John thomas

1967 June_o8  Arkansas trip  I htink this is 1968 Mark Smith, Gary Mills, Si Bennett  This was Gary's last trip with the unit.  Mr. Kizer ran the grayhound off the road on the way out of the park on the trip home about an hour later.  We had lots of bus trouble that day.

1968_april T52_17jpg
Loading out to go to colorado, note the lack of poles on hte blue panel truck

1971 T52 Arkansas _09m jpg
Should be 1968 they had just pulled the grayhound back on the road

1971 T52 arkansas _ 06 S/B 1968 The brakes locked up on the Grayhound about 50 west of camp on the way home.   I had to call RObert Vivion to find the bus mechanic in Fort Worth to get the procedure to fix the problem.  It was a huge mess that we have photos of somewhere.

JB_ 001 jpg  this is pre 1961 at UCC

T52-1960s misc02LG  This is 1966 at Trinidad CO on the way home.  It was a rainy year where the bridges washed out between our camp site and Aguilar standing our bus.  We rode to Trinidad in the bed of a coal truck to the train station.  Jack and his nephew George, drove the blue panel truck back to Fort Worth leaving Bill Ellis and I in charge of the kids on the train.   this was one of the last runs of the Burlington "Denver Zephyr" as the post office cancelled the mail contract.  We pretty much had the rain to ourselves.

T52_1969 jpg
This is 1963 trip to Colorado at Amarillo Air Force Base on the way up.