Friday, April 6, 2007

Troop 13, 1960 Boy Scout Trip


In 1960 Boy Scout Troop 13 left Fort Wayne in July on a 26 day trip covering 5,100 miles of the west. Highlights of the trip included walking 24 miles across the Grand Canyon's south rim to the north rim in 120° temperatures, attending the closing ceremony of the Boy Scout Jamboree with 56,000 other scouts just north of Colorado Springs, Yellowstone National Park, Mark Twain's hometown of Hannibal, Missouri and many other great locations.
This adventure started with the efforts of many parents and scouts going on paper drives throughout many neighborhoods to raise funds to buy an old school bus. It was a long process, but still filled with lots fun. Often someone would have stacks and stacks of papers down in their basements or garages and were so happy someone would cart it all off. At first the collecting was done in cars and then using trucks, but little by little the fund grew and with the contributions by the parents and First Presbyterian Church the goal was reached.
Jim Pinter, one the scouts, recently contacted me and several others from that trip in the hopes that a reunion might be held in the fiftieth year of the event to be held in spring of 2010. The website and this blog are in hopes of finding those fellows who also took that grand adventure.
More details can be found at http://www.richardstamats.com/1960BoyScout.html
If you are or know someone who went on that trip please let us know how to contact him or any other details.

Saturday, January 6, 2007

Welcome




My hope is that folks will find this to be an easy way to share something about their lives nearing 50 years ago. It was about a year ago that I came across my old 1958 yearbook of Washington Township School and thought it might be fun to see if other long ago classmates, their children or others would use a search engine and find a name of someone in these pages. For the most part I have good memories of that school experience and when I looked at the faces I recall even more.
The first to contact me was Colleen Bobay now Colleen MacDougall. She was also in the fourth grade. There have been others and I hope many more to come. Some have found a the name of an old loved one or a parent. This can be a central meeting spot to bring us a bit closer again after a very long lapse of time. Thank goodness for the internet. If you would like to go the website where the names and photographs from the yearbook are just click on this link.
http://www.richardstamats.com/YearbookWTS.htm

To add comments look for the # COMMENTS directly below, click on it and have a go at it. Post your comments or questions.
Thanks, Richard Stamats, formerly of Mrs. Coleman's 4th grade.