Patty Miller
The Edmond Sun
EDMOND —
Oklahoma Boy Scouts will join as many as 45,000 of their fellow scouts from across the country for the National Scout Jamboree next week in Virginia.
The largest National Scout Jamboree, set to begin July 26 and end Aug. 4, will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.
Among those attending is Will Arbuckle of Troop 339 in Edmond and an eighth-grader at Cimarron Middle School who has been designated a Hometown News Correspondent for The Edmond Sun. He is the son of Bill and Amy Arbuckle of Edmond.
Will is part of the group of 120 Oklahoma scouts representing the Last Frontier Council. They flew out of Will Rogers World Airport on one of five flights at 6:30 a.m. Thursday as they set out on the first leg of their journey to Virginia.
“The Last Frontier Council is taking scouts from 16 cities and serves the greater Oklahoma City area including Edmond,” said Doug Cook, promotion volunteer with Last Frontier Council, Boy Scouts of America. “We have three Jamboree contingent troops with 120 Boy Scouts and leaders set to embark on July 22.”
“Prior to the event, our scouts will tour historical attractions,” Cook said, “including: Constitution Center, Independence Mall, Liberty Bell and the Air and Space Museum.”
The group also has plans to travel to: Capitol Hill, Library of Congress, White House picture stop, Boy Scout Memorial, FDR Memorial, International Spy Museum, Washington Monument and the W.W. II Memorial.
Stops also will be made at: Arlington National Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, Ford’s Theatre, Natural History Museum and the Museum of American History.
The boys will then join more than 600 scouts who will represent Oklahoma as they travel to Fort A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg, Va., for 10 adventure-filled days full of fun, patch trading and a chance to earn merit badges.
More than 18,000 tents and 3,600 patrol kitchens will be set up. Scouts take part in outdoor, environmental conservation and leadership programs. There will be entertainment, a re-created American Indian village, and a “merit badge midway” where scouts have a chance to finish incomplete merit badges.
The highlight of the Jamboree is set to be the Centennial Arena Show. The event will be called “A Shining Light Across America.”
As Edmond’s National Hometown News Correspondent, Arbuckle, a First Class Boy Scout, will have the unique opportunity to submit news stories about the jamboree to The Sun directly from the jamboree.
He will be among the group that will participate in special training session with guidance from journalists and educators on writing articles and scripts, editing copy and selecting photographs/video to accompany their stories.
Hometown News correspondents also will have the privilege of interviewing special guests and celebrities attending the jamboree. Correspondent incentives include special patches, hat pins and the use of bicycles at the jamboree.
“This is the first time for me to go to a National Scout Jamboree,” Arbuckle said. They had an opening for a news correspondent, and I thought that would be a cool idea to start something new.”
The leaders will blog with a digital diary and pictures updated several times a day at LFCJambo.org.
Boy Scouts held its first jamboree in 1937. Since 1981, the National Jamboree has taken place at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, a 76,000-acre facility. Boy Scouts of America plans to move to Fayette County, W. Va., for the 2013 National Scout Jamboree. The Web site for the national event is www.bsajamboree.org/.
