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Nearly 70 Boy Scouts from across a five-county area pitched their tents at the Mozingo Lake Park youth-group campground over the weekend during the Otoe District Spring Camporee.
The Camporee is a twice-yearly event that takes place at the beginning and close of Boy Scouting's summer camping season. Typical activities include competitive events between troops and patrols designed to teach and reinforce basic Scouting skills, such as camp cooking, fire-building, rope work, first aid and compass proficiency.
Part of the Pony Express Council, which is based in St. Joseph, the Otoe District comprises Atchison, Holt, Worth, Nodaway and Gentry counties and contains 30 Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting units serving more than 550 young people. About 150 of these are Boy Scouts, a camping and leadership program aimed at youngsters ranging in age from 11 through 18.
Younger boys, 8-10, take part in Cub Scouting. High School-age youth have the option of either staying in Boy Scouts or joining a Venturing Crew, which in Otoe takes the form of the Mic-O-Say dance team.
Founded in 1925 in Buchanan County by former Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle, Mic-O-Say is an honor camping society designed to keep older boys active in Scouting through college and early adulthood. A number of boys and leaders at last week's Camporee were wearing the organization's distinctive necklace, which consists of a plastic eagle claw or claws suspended from a colorful braided lanyard.
However, many of the boys tenting at Mozingo were younger Scouts still working on the program's early ranks, Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class, which emphasize basic outdoor skills.
On Saturday, Scouting patrols — a subdivision within a troop — spent the morning starting fires using flint and steel, following a compass course, improvising first-aid stretchers, lashing flag poles together and using pencil-sized twigs to estimate height and distance.
Due to a stiff northwest wind off the lake, the fire-building contest proved especially challenging, though the Fire Patrol from Troop 102 in Albany lived up to its name by kindling a blaze big enough to boil a small pot of water.
Though most of the contests focused on honing genuine woodcraft, a couple were just for fun, such as a blindfolded target-shooting event featuring a small crossbow designed to fire marshmallows.
Nearly 70 Boy Scouts from across a five-county area pitched their tents at the Mozingo Lake Park youth-group campground over the weekend during the Otoe District Spring Camporee.
The Camporee is a twice-yearly event that takes place at the beginning and close of Boy Scouting's summer camping season. Typical activities include competitive events between troops and patrols designed to teach and reinforce basic Scouting skills, such as camp cooking, fire-building, rope work, first aid and compass proficiency.
Part of the Pony Express Council, which is based in St. Joseph, the Otoe District comprises Atchison, Holt, Worth, Nodaway and Gentry counties and contains 30 Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting units serving more than 550 young people. About 150 of these are Boy Scouts, a camping and leadership program aimed at youngsters ranging in age from 11 through 18.
Younger boys, 8-10, take part in Cub Scouting. High School-age youth have the option of either staying in Boy Scouts or joining a Venturing Crew, which in Otoe takes the form of the Mic-O-Say dance team.
Founded in 1925 in Buchanan County by former Kansas City mayor H. Roe Bartle, Mic-O-Say is an honor camping society designed to keep older boys active in Scouting through college and early adulthood. A number of boys and leaders at last week's Camporee were wearing the organization's distinctive necklace, which consists of a plastic eagle claw or claws suspended from a colorful braided lanyard.
However, many of the boys tenting at Mozingo were younger Scouts still working on the program's early ranks, Tenderfoot, Second Class and First Class, which emphasize basic outdoor skills.
On Saturday, Scouting patrols — a subdivision within a troop — spent the morning starting fires using flint and steel, following a compass course, improvising first-aid stretchers, lashing flag poles together and using pencil-sized twigs to estimate height and distance.
Due to a stiff northwest wind off the lake, the fire-building contest proved especially challenging, though the Fire Patrol from Troop 102 in Albany lived up to its name by kindling a blaze big enough to boil a small pot of water.
Though most of the contests focused on honing genuine woodcraft, a couple were just for fun, such as a blindfolded target-shooting event featuring a small crossbow designed to fire marshmallows.
