From staff reports
news@joplinglobe.com
Dean Ertel, 64, said it more than once: “I wish every kid had the opportunity to be in Scouting.”
Ertel is the top executive for the Ozark Trails Council, based in Springfield, which includes 28 counties in Southwest Missouri and three counties in Southeast Kansas. The council has 404 scouting units affiliated with businesses, churches and service groups throughout the region.
The council also has more than 3,000 acres of land including the Childress Scout Reservation near Joplin as well as Camp Arrowhead, near Marshfield, which Ertel said was the oldest continuously operating Boy Scout Camp west of the Mississippi River.
As the Boy Scouts of America mark its 100th anniversary, he talks about his experience in scouting.
Q: How did you get into Scouting?
A: “I was a Cub Scout when I was little. There was no Boy Scout troop for me to get into,” he said.
Ertel graduated from high school, spent four years in the U.S. Air Force and used the GI Bill to get a degree in zoology from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Ill. Married with a young son, he was looking for work, and not having a lot of luck at that point, when he got an offer to work at the Pine Ridge Scout Reservation in southern Illinois.
“I said how much does it pay?”
“$50 for the summer.”
But his wife and baby could stay rent free, and food was provided. It was what was available at the time.
While at Pine Ridge, his wife was hired for $160 to be the head of the cooking staff, and soon after he was hired as commissary director, taking care of the needs of 300 kids every week.
It was the beginning of what Ertel describes his becoming a “professional Boy Scout.”
Q: How did it come about that you went from that first job to make Scouting your life’s work?
A: “In a few years of doing this job, you start to see a difference you can make in the lives of young people ... their parents ... their families ... After that it becomes a mission.”
Ertel worked over the years as a scouting executive in Columbia, Mo., then in Minnesota and from 1984 to 1990, he was the top executive for the Mo-Kan Council based in Joplin. He then went on to Fargo, N.D., with a council that was so large it took 11 hours to get from one end of it to the other. That, and the winters, he said, wore on him. He eventually came back after the Joplin and Springfield councils merged and has been here since 1994.
Over the years, he has witnessed Scouting become a transformational experience for many young boys.
“It has to do with the fact that a lot of kids ... when you put those kids in a Scout unit and they put that little tan shirt on ... they learn to work with each other, they learn how to depend on each other ... they learn how to be a leader, and kids don’t realize they are even being taught it.”
Q: There is a lot of competition for children’s time today. How is Scouting faring 100 years after it was started?
A: “In 2009, our traditional programs (Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturing) had a 2.4 percent increase.”
Ertel was referring to the Ozark Trails Council. It serves 8,641 kids with the help of 3,837 volunteers.
He agreed there is no shortage of things to interest boys, but said that has always been the case.
“That was the challenge 38 years ago.”
Scouting’s advantage is that it can begin with boys as young as age 7 and continue through college with the more advanced Venturing program.
“When you go through a Scouting program, it is an experience that can last a lifetime.”
Q: How does Scouting remain relevant?
A: “I think it’s a neat combination in that you have got new merit badges being offered in 2009, 2010 and 2011. I think right now there are 121 (merit badges). There is everything from canoeing and backpacking to atomic energy.”
Along with the emphasis on knot tying and fire starting, there are new merit badges for robotics as well as GPS/GIS systems.
Even the traditional emphasis on outdoor skills has changed. There is now more of an emphasis on the environmental sciences and the role of conservation.
“I am hoping a lot of what kids are being taught will help them change things and make things a little better.”
Then he added: “There are some things that don’t need to change.”
In particular, he cited the social and leadership skills that always have been part of Scouting programs.
“I think the hard-core center of the program doesn’t need to change.”
“Eagle Scouts average $20,000 a year more in income than people who aren’t in the Scouting program ... Scouting builds that character.”
Q: What is your favorite Scouting memory?
A: “I have two sons and a daughter and all three of my kids were in this program. Both boys are Eagle Scouts. My daughter spent three years in the Venturing program.”
He recalls nights camping in sub-zero temperatures so one of his sons could get the Zero Hero award, with hot dogs so frozen they would shatter like glass if they hit them on a board.
“Three times I went into the Beartooth Mountains (backpacking) in Montana. ... with my daughter I went on canoe trips down the St. Louis River.”
She was doing that as part of the Explorer program, which exposes older children to career fields ranging from environmental sciences to law enforcement.
“I got to do things all over the country with my kids that I never got to do as a kid. I got to be a kid again.”
To learn more, go to www.ozarktrailsbsa.org or call 417-883-1636.
Scout oath
“On my honor I will do my best; To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.”
