Webster Word

A Brief History of Troop 965

April 1991 to February 2007

Rev: 9 Feb 2007

The precursor of Troop 965 was Troop 765 at Webster Church in the 1960s. Bernie Cohen was the scoutmaster, and many Webster Village young men were scouts in the troop, to include Michael and Bryce Cohen, David Heath, and Barry Childress. This troop was long inactive when we decided to reactivate scouts at Webster Church. We wanted to reinstate the number 765, but it was not available. We settled on 965, so we could reuse equipment, changing the 7s to 9s.

In late 1990, Dave Brown, Ron Querns, and Levin Heath got together to plot the reactivation of Scouting at Webster Church. The troop officially held its first meeting in April 1991, with Dave Brown as Scoutmaster; Ron Querns, Doug Helmkamp, Rick Snyder, and Ralph Hagelin as Assistant Scoutmasters; and Levin Heath as Committee Chairman. Levin’s Committee members included Vernon Eddington, Jim Duffy, Paul Childress, Dan Foell, Ted Walke, and Dale Krotee.

The troop’s first Senior Patrol Leader (SPL, Boy Leader of the Troop) was Nathanial (Nat) Kraemer, and the Assistant Senior Patrol Leader was Andy Korch; both borrowed from Troop 802 in Aberdeen. The troop started with about 15 scouts, to include Collin and Kevin Brown, Mike Querns, Mike Clark, Dan Bell, Chris Helmkamp, Ryan Walke, Scott and Derek Monks, Steve Hartwig, Josh Hagelin, Erik and Andy Snyder, Alan Burdette, and Jason Bauer. We had three patrols – Cobras, Flaming Arrows, and Bats. After Nat and Andy helped get our troop going, the scouts chose Erik Snyder as their first elected SPL. One of our first projects was to clean-out and fix-up the scout room. Our early activities included camping at Lyle’s Farm, canoeing on the Susquehanna and camping on Garrett Island, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and summer camp with Troop 802 at Broad Creek. Our big fundraiser was our first spaghetti supper at Webster Church in February 1992, where we proudly served 450 meals to the community.

Over the next few years our membership grew rapidly to over 40 active scouts, and our scouts advanced rapidly, earning over 50 rank advancements and around 150 merit badges per year. Our first Eagle Scout was Erik Snyder in October 1993. Our activities expanded to include historic trails at Manassas, Gettysburg, Baltimore, and Annapolis; summer camp at Horseshoe; Operation Icicle; sailing on the Chesapeake; bike hike on the C&O canal; and Lenhoksin High Adventure in Goshen, VA. Levin Heath turned over the Committee Chairmanship to Doug Helmkamp, and Ron Querns served as interim Scoutmaster when Dave Brown was assigned to Washington, DC for 6 months. We soon added more Eagle Scouts to our ranks, to include Josh Hagelin, Chris Helmkamp, and Harrison Wick.

In June of 1996, Dave Brown turned over Scoutmaster to Jack Hoy, and Dave became the Committee Chairman. By then our numbers had grown to almost 60 active scouts. Our activities soon included some great high adventures such as a week in the Florida Keys, a week on the New River in West Virginia, and a wilderness canoe trip in Manitoba, Canada. Our Eagle projects included some great additions to Webster Church, such as expanding and grading the parking lot so it could be paved, the brick walkways to the church and parsonage, the concrete flooring in the basement entrance, the drop ceiling and lighting in the basement entrance. Our Eagle Scout ranks grew as well to include Tom Lewis, Andy Snyder, J.W. Walker, Tim Hoy, Mark Herman, Chris and David Crue, Rick Sickenberger, Garrett Ragan, Casey Snyder, Clay Lottes, Matt Walker, Matt Kosydar, Darren Brown, Mike Conrad, Jeff Berthney, Eric Hoy, Brian Powell, Kevin Murray, Jim Kundratic, Patrick Pownell, Nick Kurlick, Bill Caporellie, Jason Keefer, Mike Caporellie, and Kevin Kundratic. Our Spaghetti Supper fundraiser continued to grow to the point where we were serving 500-600 meals, and most of the community looked forward to it each year. We acquired a great troop trailer and greatly improved our camping equipment to better support our growing numbers and adventurous activities.

We began to see our scouts growing into young men and contributing substantially to scouting and community. Two of our scouts, Chris Helmkamp and Mark Herman, received the Vigil Honor of the Order of the Arrow together, followed by our third Vigil Honor scout, Casey Snyder, a few years later. We had upwards to six of our scouts on staff at Camp Horseshoe, to include Chris Helmkamp as the Camp Program Director, and three of our scouts serving as Directors of Campcraft, Aquatics, and Crafts. Our troop was, and still is, regarded as one of the most active, dynamic, and well run troops in the Harford District of the Baltimore Area Council.

In October of 2003, Jack Hoy turned over Scoutmaster to Rob Mitchell. Level Fire Company joined Webster Church in joint sponsorship of our troop. This gave us an additional meeting room in the fire hall, which was much appreciated because of Webster’s growing support of community activities. Our ranks now stabilized around a more reasonable 40-50 active scouts. Our advancements continued so that our Eagle scouts now number 30. Our high adventures continued, adding a 2005 expedition to Philmont Scout Ranch in the New Mexico Rocky Mountains. We adopted the stretch of Route 155 by Webster as our continuous service project. Our Spaghetti Suppers out-grew Webster Church and are now held at Level Fire Hall, serving over 1000 meals now.

In October 2006, Rob Mitchell turned over Scoutmaster to Ken Collins. We currently have almost 50 active scouts and almost 40 active adult leaders. We are very pleased that our adult leaders include many of our former scouts. We have already had a great Operation Icicle Campout in January, and are looking forward to a busy year of great activities that include summer camp at Camp Horseshoe, canoeing in Asseteague, a beach weekend at Cape Henlopen State Park, and another high adventure wilderness canoe trip in Manitoba, Canada.

Contributed by Dave Brown