Timberline: The Start for KP

Timberline: 1st Year with Ben, Mark, Doug, Bruce

                      (Timberline part 1)

In 1988 we had a ward boundary change and as a result of that I was called as the Ward Scoutmaster. I soon learned about a Junior Leader Training program in scouting called Timberline in the Utah National Parks Council. So as part of the program I signed Ben up to go to it in the summer of 1989 with a course that was being held with the Provo District. He went and had a great time even though the outcome wasn’t as good as it should have been. They had a ticket (set of goals) that they were suppose to complete after coming home but due to some mix ups at the camp during the final days Ben’s ticket never got approved or the written goals completed before he was to come home. Well that got me started. I was asked to be on a local district staff the following couple of years but due to circumstances with work was not able to do it. Finally in 1990 I was asked by a cousin, Mark Poulson, to be the Quarter Master for his Timberline course that year. I told him I would if I could get Ben on as a youth staffer with us. Mark was going to ask him anyway so it was set. I figured that the experience on  staff would help to redeem some of the things that he didn’t get done as a participant. Well I was assigned to be the Quarter Master for the course and we went to Bennion Creek to hold our course. It was a really great experience and I was able to develop a meal plan that fed all of the course staff and participants for an average of a dollar a meal per person.  That was a pretty good accomplishment since we were trying to keep the cost as low as possible for the encampment.

Ben and I both had a lot of fun that year and learned a lot about Timberline. I learned how an organized camp could be ran and what was needed to accomplish it. Ben learned how to be a leader. He was still fairly small for his age and one day as Mark and I talked about his patrol and that he was only a little older than the patrol members he was teaching I learned something very valuable in relation to him. Mark simply stated, as I expressed my concerns about Ben teaching the lesson to the boys and that they may not listen to him, that it wasn’t size that counted in being an instructor but rather the facts that the boys didn’t know if the lesson was taught exactly how it had to be,  that Ben was either shorter or younger than any of them but rather that he had been through the preparation phase of Timberline and they hadn’t so what he taught would be totally new to them and thus he had the major advantage over them. We sent a couple of the senior staff with Ben the first couple of lessons and they reported back that he did a great job and I was then able to relax knowing he would most likely end up having a great experience this time around.

It was also my first time teaching lessons from Timberline but I learned quickly that the boys were like sponges and would just soak up anything that they could learn. I also became better friends with Mark Poulson, Doug Binks and Bruce Palmer that year on course. They were all experienced with at least one more year of being on staff so I soaked up all that I could from them. From that came lasting relationships that were very beneficial to myself and my family. Of course it didn’t hurt that Doug and I both had boys that were approximately the same ages as well.

One evening I learned to the value of doing what you are suppose to be doing and when it was supposed to be done. We had sent the boys out to their outpost camps. (One night toward the end of the week when they were on their own as a patrol to experience the leadership principles that they had been taught during the week.) Well the staff also was suppose to have a campfire program as well and as we were sitting and singing the camp songs and doing our own skits I noticed several of the participants sneaking through the trees above camp. They were not at their sites as they were supposed to be and maybe they had indeed done what they were supposed to have done but I doubted it. I turned to Mark and said in a low voice that I could see several of the participants above the camp in the trees. He didn’t seem to concerned but then made the statement to me that it sure was a good thing that we were doing what we were supposed to be doing and setting the example. I took that little statement as a lesson to be used in future courses and always did what we were suppose to be doing whether the boys knew that it was a part of the schedule or not.

I also learned that year to be an example of a good scouter and use the principles of the Scout oath and Scout law every day. I loved the concepts that were taught and although they were not new to me since I had been through them in Wood Badge I was even more impressed by them when it came to practicing them in an actual camp setting. That was a year that changed my course through life very dramatically and almost as much as the year I had attended Wood Badge, the first time my life was really changed to include scouting in it for good.