Leaders

 

National Capital Area Council, Boy Scouts of America is proud to announce the 2023 Class of Silver Beavers. The Silver Beaver Award is a distinguished service award presented at the local level.

Recipients of this award are adult leaders who have made an impact on the lives of youth both in and out of Scouting. They have given hard work, self-sacrifice, dedication, and many years of service to our community. The members of this year’s class are:

Class Honoree: Rick Rogers

These community leaders will be recognized at the Council Court of Honor on May 13, 2023 at  Camp Synder.

Please join the NCAC Outdoor Ethics Committee in congratulating our very own scouter, Leave No Trace Master Educator & instructor extraordinaire Paul Schimke for receiving the prestigious Outdoor Ethics Distinguished Service Award! This highly coveted national award is presented by the BSA Outdoor Ethics & Conservation Subcommittee to an individual or organization who has provided distinguished service & leadership in support of outdoor ethics in the Scouting program. The nominee must have provided exceptional service and leadership to outdoor ethics in the Scouting program above & beyond the basic responsibilities outlined in their job description. This award is intended to recognize service with a scope of responsibility beyond the council level. Fewer than 30 individuals & organizations have earned this award!

For those of you who do not know Paul, he has volunteered tirelessly to educate scouts & scouters about outdoor ethics. He has taught 23 Leave No Trace Trainer courses to over 250 students! He has also taught countless Leave No Trace 101 & Outdoor Ethics Orientation courses, reaching hundreds if not thousands of students. In addition to teaching, over the years he developed a very comprehensive curriculum with a robust, modular, reusable set of training materials that made instruction easy for course staff & learning easy for students. Paul also helped develop a set of training materials that were used to teach Leave No Trace at Goshen Scout Reservation. Paul plays a key leadership role in the NCAC Outdoor Ethics Committee providing priceless guidance, insights, updates & help where needed. He leverages his position as the Leave No Trace Maryland & DC State Advocate to support Leave No Trace training within scouting; this includes access to Leave No Trace booth kits & to events such as Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers & Hot Spots. Paul’s reach goes far beyond our NCAC council; as the lead of the national Outdoor Ethics & Conservation Round Tables, hundreds of scouters & scouts have attended these national Round Tables, viewed the videos, downloaded the slides, & clicked links to additional materials. In addition to Paul’s incredible efforts to promote Leave No Trace, Paul is also a Leopold Education Project Facilitator for the Aldo Leopold Foundation & regularly includes lessons on the Land Ethic in various scouting events.

Previous recipient Josh Lamothe presented the award to Paul at the 2022 National Outdoor Ethics & Conservation Conference at the Bert Adams Scout Reservation in Georgia. Here is an excerpt from Josh’s remarks:

“Paul has been active in sharing outdoor ethics in the National Capital Area Council for over 20 years. He completed his Master Educator course in 2011 and since that time has organized and facilitated more than 20 Leave No Trace Trainer courses in multiple states and councils. Paul has been a leader in developing material and systems for conducting online trainer courses during the pandemic, enabling Scouts and adult leaders to learn about Leave No Trace during a time when record numbers of people were heading outdoors to enjoy our public lands. Paul has led outdoor ethics activities during council and area events as well as for outside organizations as Maryland’s Leave No Trace State Advocate. Paul is a Leopold Education Project facilitator, helping incorporate the Land Ethic into Scouting and a key member of the Outdoor Ethics and Conservation Sub-committee operations groups, helping to develop and deliver monthly online outdoor ethics roundtables. Please join me in congratulating Paul Schimke in receiving the Outdoor Ethics Distinguished Service Award.”

We are incredibly lucky to have Paul in NCAC & we thank him for his phenomenal efforts in teaching outdoor ethics!

On November 10-12, I had the privilege to attend the 2022 BSA National Outdoor Ethics and Conservation Conference at Camp Bert Adams in Covington, GA. It was an awesome experience! Outdoor Ethics and conservation are at the core of Scouting’s outdoor program, and after attending this conference I can attest that our focus on them is making Scouting’s outdoor program stronger than ever.

There was so much to do, and so many people to talk to! Participants got to hear from and sit down to share a meal with national experts and resources. The Leave No Trace Traveling Trainers were there to share a lot of great ideas on how to help youth to build an outdoor ethic. Leave No Trace Director of Education and Training JD Tanner took us through Leave No Trace’s recent changes and their strategies for the next few years. The BSA National Outdoor Ethics and Conservation Committee teams shared what they’re working on and the support they can provide to councils.

But that wasn’t all! We learned about the new Distinguished Conservation Service Award for youth. This award replaces the former Hornaday Award, which was administered by BSA National. The new DCSA award is administered by council Conservation Committees, which will make the award more accessible to more youth. We were joined by the Green Crew, a new Venturing crew from Minneapolis. The Green Crew is a unique Venturing crew. They are a Venturing crew whose program is planning and conducting services projects for their chartering Izaak Walton League of America chapter. All their projects are advertised and open to the public to participate in. They’ve gotten a lot of national attention. https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2022/11/09/the-secret-of-their-success-venturing-crew-focuses-solely-on-conservation/ Once again, it was great to hear from and sit down with these creative and passionate youth and their leaders.

In that great mix, I had the opportunity to share some of the NCAC Outdoor Ethics Committee’s successes. Often, we don’t appreciate what we have right here at home. Our NCAC Outdoor Ethics Committee is viewed as one of, and perhaps the best in the country. I was asked to share the work we’ve done creating training for new Scouts BSA troop Outdoor Ethics Guides. I also led a workshop on how other councils can better market their own Outdoor Ethics offerings. It really felt great to be able to help other councils by sharing some of the work that so many people have done through the NCAC Outdoor Ethics Committee, particularly Sara Holtz and Victor Bieniek.

Just when most of us felt that our brains were starting to hurt from all the great ideas we’d picked up, our closing speaker was Professor Doug Tallamy of the University of Delaware. His presentation on “Nature’s Best Hope” was a wonderful way to cap off the conference.

Your NCAC Outdoor Ethics Committee is here to help you advance your unit’s program. Let us know how we can help!

 

Akela’s Trail is a leadership training for Cub Scout leaders has been cancelled. It is a great way to learn the basics of Cub Scouting or take more advanced trainings to help the Pack and program grow. Akela’s Trail has something to offer everyone. Being held virtually in the comfort of your home on November 19, 2022 from 8:30am-Noon. Click the registration link for more information and the course descriptions.

UPDATE: 12/5/22 Jack Lundin’s Memorial service will be held at the Vienna Presbyterian Church on December 28, 2022 at 11:00 AM with a repast afterwards.

UPDATE: With tremendous sadness, we announce the passing of Mr. Lundin at Fairfax Hospital on November 10, 2022. Our condolences to his family and everyone in our Scouting family who mourn this loss. He will be missed by many who appreciated his help and dedication through these many decades. 

If your son is or was a Scout in the Vienna Virginia area and achieved the rank of Eagle, chances are pretty good he sat in Jack Lundin’s family room. Jack has played an exemplary role in the lives of many Scouts on their journey towards Eagle.

More accurately, that figure is 881 young men at the time of this writing. Jack keeps an on going log in his white binder of every single scout who comes to see him as part of their Eagle Scout Service Project and Eagle Application Process, usually culminating in an Eagle Scout Board of Review (BOR).

Jack recently celebrated his 99th birthday and has no plans to slow down. He continues to meet with at least 1 Eagle Scout candidate each week.

I first met Jack when my oldest of three sons went through the Eagle application process. Later, I would meet with Jack at his home as the Scoutmaster of Troop 976 with many of our Eagle candidates during my tenure in that position. My other two boys would soon follow their older brother. Jack is a kind hearted soul who really knows how to connect with young scouts. He challenges them with interesting, thought provoking questions centered around service to others, good citizenship, and leadership. And yet, he was somewhat of a mystery to me and my fellow Scout Leaders. Seeing a photo of Jack celebrating with yet another successful Eagle Scout, I was compelled to visit him and learn more about our hometown Scouting legend.

Jack Lundin was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 23, 1923, 13 years after the Scout Movement first came to America; a movement that Jack’s father was part of establishing in the St. Paul area. Jack achieved the Eagle Rank in 1937 with Troop 65, chartered by the Cleveland Methodist Church. He graduated from Monroe High school in 1941. He would spend the following summer working on the “Empire Builder” passenger train of the Great Northern Railway as a “news butch” selling newspapers and refreshments for just $2 a day while riding the train back and forth to South Dakota. He earned enough money to pay for his first year’s tuition at the University of Minnesota where he studied Chemical Engineering.

Jack’s academics were put on hold during WWII when he decided to enlist in the U.S. Army as a pre-meteorologist in January of 1943. After he completed basic training at Kearns Airfield, near Salt Lake city, he was sent to the University of Wisconsin for further training, then to Chanute Airfield, IL, to attend the meteorology cadet school. Jack was commissioned as a 2nd Lt. in June of that same year. For the next 6 months he worked in the weather station at Dale Mabry Field in Florida and was then transferred to the Air Transport Command in Myitkyina, Burma, to support the War in the Pacific. Jack served as the Weight and Balance Officer in charge of loading aircraft preparing to travel over the Hump, the nickname given to the treacherous journey over the Himalayan Mountain Range into China. After the war Jack returned to the states and was honorably discharged in 1946.

Upon his return Jack continued his education at the University of Minnesota earning a BS in Mathematics, Physics and Radiochemistry. He was then employed by Macalester College in St. Paul as a Chemistry Instructor. In 1951 Jack was hired by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where he worked for the next 35 years! During that time, the CIA would send him to the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Training where he became a Nuclear Engineer.

During Jack’s many adventures and achievements he would marry his lovely wife Kyle in 1949 and share his life with her for the next 59 years until her passing. They had 4 children together; three sons Erick (1951), James (1954), and Robert (1957), and a wonderful daughter Susan (1964).

Jack moved to Vienna Virginia in 1952. His long history in Scouting began in his youth and was later nurtured when in 1967 he would volunteer to serve on a the Naval War College’s Troop Committee while he was attending classes there. Upon returning to Vienna he joined Troop 152 chartered by the Vienna Presbyterian Church. He served as Scoutmaster from 1969 to 1975 and supported his three sons on their journey to Eagle. He became an Area Commissioner and soon joined the National Capital Area Council’s (NCAC) High Adventure Committee where he was a member for 35 years. He completed two Crew Treks as an Adult Advisor on the Philmont Scout Ranch in 1978 and 1982. He currently serves as the Chairman of the George Mason District’s Eagle Board that he joined in 1975.

Jack Lundin has been a registered Scout Leader for 59 years! Imagine for a moment how many young men Jack has positively influenced in that time. His grandson’s Timothy and David also joined the Lundin Eagle’s nest when both achieved the rank in 2002. Jack was proud to show me his family room mantel that hosts his numerous scouting achievements such as his Troop Scoutmaster Award (Troop 152, 1972), the Silver Beaver Award (NCAC, 1981), the Excellence in Scouting Award (NCAC, 2007), the Hal Fuerst Service Award (Troop 152, 2009), two George Mason District Key Three Awards (2012, 2014), and the very prestigious Lifetime Scouter Award (NCAC, 2015).

Thank you Mr. Jack Lundin for all you have done and still do for our youth, our community, and for your service to our country. May you enjoy many more birthdays to come.

As of 10.27.22 I have just learned that Jack has officially retired from Scouting. I know he would appreciate hearing from our Scouting community.

The Silver Beaver Award was introduced in 1931 and is a council-level distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America. Recipients of this award are registered Scouters who have made an impact on the lives of youth through service given at the council, district, and unit levels. The Silver Beaver is given to those who implement the Scouting program and perform community service over a period of several years.

Nominations are due to Kelly Wratkowski by November 30, 2022 . The nomination process is not a guarantee of selection and should remain confidential. The potential candidate should not know that he or she is being considered for the Silver Beaver.

More information and the submission details are available at https://www.ncacbsa.org/silver-beaver-award/.