Troop 7
Troop 7
Council
Troop 7 carried out many of the same trips, activities mid service projects during the 80’s as in the 1970’s. Campouts were very popular. These included Camp Jayhawk, fishing at Osage County Lake and Clinton Lake, hunting at Dow’s Farm, Wright’s Farm, Kiwanis cabin campout, General Walt Trail, Santa Fe Trail, Fort Riley Trail and a hiking trip through the Flint Hills.
Adventure trips included: Shiloh Military Trail in 1981, Colorado Trip in 1983, Philmont and USS. Yorktown in South Carolina in 1984. Fundraisers included the pancake and bean feeds, carnivals, garage sales, and paper drives.
Many community troop activities kept the scouts busy, such as: serving food at mother-daughter banquets, Gage Center clean-up, participating in community outreach programs for Doorstep, saving canned foods for the Christmas Project, school night visits, and Scout Sundays are just a few.
The troop also participated in council activities like Scout-O-Rama, Camporee, Jayhawk Area Council office dedication as well as their own troop Eagle recognition dinner. They were recognized as an honor unit during this time.
Fond Memories
John Kleinschmidt (25th Scoutmaster)
The thing I remember most fondly about my term as scoutmaster was the great support I got from the troop committee. They let me run the program for the boys and supported me every way they could. In a troop the size of Troop Seven, one man cannot be everything. It takes a lot of support to operate a scout troop successfully and that support was always there for me.
My Experiences as Scoutmaster of Troop 7 1981-85
Philip Andruss (24th Scoutmaster)
During my tenure as scoutmaster there are many fond memories. One of the most gratifying parts of being a scoutmaster is knowing you have had some influence on some young men’s lives, hopefully positive ones.
My experience was a real pleasure because there were almost as many dads active in the Troop as there were scouts. I always had more than enough volunteers to do any job that needed to be done. Our campouts were just as much, if not more, fun for the dads as the scouts. We had so many dads, with as many varied backgrounds; we almost never had to look outside the troop for merit badge instructors.
No scout troop can be successful without an active Mother’s Club. Troop 7 had a very active Mother’s Club and I can’t express how much they were appreciated while I was Scoutmaster.
City Scoutmaster
During one summer trip to Camp Jayhawk I became known as the “City Scoutmaster.” The story goes something like this as recounted by Assistant Scoutmaster John Klienschmidt at a Court of Honor. John was always very active on the outdoor activities and always took a week’s vacation to accompany the scouts to Camp Jayhawk. One day during one of those weeks some of the scouts were asking (really pestering) John about when the Scoutmaster, Mr. Andruss, would be at camp to sign-off on their activities at camp. John could only take so much, and finally when all of the scouts were assembled and he was asked one more time about when Mr. Andruss would be at camp, John told the scouts “Mr. Andruss is the City Scoutmaster and I am the Camp Scoutmaster and I will sign whatever needs signing while you are at camp.” Well the story took on a life of it’s own and I became known as the “City Scoutmaster.”
Shiloh, Tennessee
Probably the most memorable activities were the high adventure trips to other parts of the country. Trips were of a week or more and usually involved chartering a bus or renting large vans for transportation. One such trip was to Shiloh, Tennessee. It was to the National Park and location of the Baffle of Shiloh during the Civil Wan While there the scouts and dads hiked 88 miles over a one-week period.
We hired a bus and driver for this trip. On the way there the bus was in an accident at 4am, with a pickup coming out of the hills, driven by none other than Elvis (not Presley). He obviously was well known in those parts as he was on a first name basis with the law enforcement officers who investigated the accident. No one was hurt, but it did wake everyone up rather abruptly. In addition to the bus we used for transportation to get to Shiloh, some of the mothers brought Vern Failor’s van and trailer (dubbed Vern’s Van and the Pallor Trailer by the scouts) to transport the injured and bring lunch during each days hike.
After a week of hiking we returned via Nashville, Tennessee where the scouts and dads took in Nashville USA and Opery Land.