EDMOND — Edmond’s Thomas Angell recently received his great-grandfather’s Boy Scout merit badges the day after his 12th birthday.

The great-grandson of Dr. Warren M. Angell, Oklahoma Baptist University’s Fine Arts dean emeritus, Thomas received his great-grandfather’s Boy Scout memorabilia from Richard Cheek, dean of library services and acting university historian.

Cheek presented the badges to Thomas Angell, who attends Edmond Summit Middle School, in OBU’s Mabee Learning Center, which houses the OBU archives.

According to an article issued by OBU, Tenderfoot Boy Scout Thomas said receiving the badges, cherished by his family, was a great surprise.

“Our father loved to tell us, when we were growing up, about going to Boy Scout camp and earning his Boy Scout awards,” Angell’s daughters, Sally Angell Moore and Julie Angell-Nadeau, wrote in a message to Cheek, the article said.

The daughters said OBU alumni, having heard the story numerous times, thought it would be great fun to try to finally get the awards Angell earned and present them to him at a homecoming celebration. The head of the Oklahoma Boy Scouts of America came to OBU and presented Dr. Angell with four framed merit badges.  

“Our father was so surprised and pleased, you can’t imagine,” Angell’s daughters reported. “He finally had his Boy Scout awards he had worked so hard for, when he was young, 70-plus years later. That gave him an even better story to tell his great-grandchildren.”

Thomas Angell’s parents, Kirby Warren and Michelee Angell, brought their children to Bison Hill on May 25, to retrieve the badges and to tour the facilities housing the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts, including Ford Music Hall. The badges were part of a collection of music and memorabilia in the OBU archives provided by the Angell family and organized by former OBU historian Tom Terry.

For Southern Baptists growing up in Oklahoma, Dr. Warren M. Angell was a household name.

Angell was Oklahoma Baptist University’s dean of Fine Arts for 37 years before retiring in 1973, but for many people, Oklahomans or not, he was music personified.

In addition to his academic leadership, Angell was a respected teacher, a noted composer and arranger, a widely recognized pianist and a well-known choral conductor until his death in May of 2006.

In 1938 he founded the Bison Glee Club and directed the organization until 1975. He also founded the Bisonette Glee Club in 1954 and the Tuneclippers in 1962.

Co-workers, graduates and students who came to know Dean Angell, as he was lovingly known, have shared stories about him throughout the years, but recently Nikki Nielsen, Angell’s daughter-in-law, shared a story many heard from Warren Angell himself and some may have heard retold by someone else.



‘Storyteller’ is one of Warren Angell’s monikers

In 1919, Warren Angell told the story of how he was a Boy Scout at Camp Russell in the Adirondack Mountains in White Lake, N.Y. He was 12 that May.

Having worked hard all week to win merit badges for diving, survival swimming and first aid, Angell was looking forward to the awards ceremony the last night at the big bonfire, Nielsen said.

“Just as it began, he was told that because he had agreed to help with the music, he could be considered staff and was disqualified,” Nielsen said.

As Angell had told, retold and embellished the merit badge story for more than 70 years, he said he didn’t quite complete the requirements that week, partly because the camp leaders discovered what an accomplished pianist he was, even as a 12-year-old, and kept him busy at the keyboard. They enlisted him to play the piano during assemblies that week.

Young Angell was thrilled when they invited him to stay an extra week as staff pianist. That would give him time to complete the requirements for the three merit badges he was working on, or so he thought.

“When the award ceremony rolled around that second week, Warren had completed the necessary requirements and was looking forward to receiving his badges,” said Richard Huggins, former OBU student, who said he and others had heard the story numerous times, “but before the ceremony, one of the camp leaders explained that he couldn’t receive the badges because he was on staff.”

Crushed and disappointed, the young pianist sat through the ceremony fuming and plotting revenge.

For a 12-year-old that just seemed so unfair, Nielsen said.

Distraught, early the next morning, the last day of camp, Angell packed his things, slipped out the back of the tent and began hiking out of camp through the woods.

Huggins said someone noticed, alerted the camp staff and they headed off after him. When Angell realized he was being chased, he gleefully accelerated his getaway with Scout leaders running after him and yelling for him to come back.

“Incredibly, out of nowhere, a black taxi came round the bend,” Nielsen said. “The driver took one look at Warren and his pursuers, opened the door and said, ‘Get in!’”

The driver agreed to take Angell home to Brooklyn, where the driver was heading anyway, leaving the camp staff bewildered about the whereabouts of the young camper.

Nielsen said Angell never returned to Scouting but delighted in telling and retelling the story through the years.

In 1997, at OBU’s homecoming, the head of the Oklahoma Boy Scouts officially presented an exuberant 90-year-old Warren Angell with the long-awaited badges.

“There are four, beautifully framed in a shadow box with brass plate engraved ‘Better Late Than Never,’” Nielsen said.

At his passing in 2006 (one week shy of 98 years of age) the badges were donated to the OBU Angell archives.

This May, Angell’s great-grandson Thomas Angell turned 12. A Boy Scout himself, Thomas was attending a Boy Scout camp in Colorado when Warren Angell’s daughters asked that the badges be given to Thomas. He was told his great-grandfather left him a special birthday present at OBU.

It was Warren who named Thomas. With a keen interest in American history, Warren longed to bring the Thomas name back into the family. The original Thomas Angell came to Providence, R.I., with Roger Williams in the 1600s.

The first Baptist church built in America was built on Angell land.

“It still stands, massive and very European,” Nielsen said, “and Thomas Road and Angell Lane intersect nearby. Warren visited many times, even climbing all the way into the top of the unique bell tower to look at its construction.”

Although Thomas never knew his great-grandfather, the two Angells share many things in common from the elder naming the younger to both being born in May, both joining Boy Scouts and both anticipating merit badges when they were 12.

“Warren was a master storyteller. He would be so pleased with the way this story keeps going,” Nielsen said. “Better late than never.”



pmiller@edmondsun.com | 341-2121, ext. 171