Annual Merit Badge Day draws hundreds of scouts

By Eve­lyn Long -

They came from Ohio and sur­round­ing states to attend the third annual Card­ing­ton 30 Merit Badge Day event held at the Cardington-Lincoln High School on Octo­ber 27.

A total of 162 reg­is­tered Boy Scouts attended the Merit Badge Day, an event where scouts reg­is­ter to par­tic­i­pate in two three-hour work­shops, geared toward cer­tain Merit Badges. Reg­is­tered Scouts can earn one to four merit badges in one day, pro­vid­ing the scout has com­pleted his pre­req­ui­sites and had them approved by the Merit Badge Counselor.

“It was a great event again,” said Audrey Mesaros-Gale, who with her hus­band, Mike Gale, chaired the event to help sup­port the cur­rent Card­ing­ton BSA Troop 30 in their effort to raise money for the troop. This money funds the troops’ annual re-charter fees of each reg­is­tered mem­ber, a sub­scrip­tion to Boys Life Mag­a­zine for each scout and all awards and Merit badges for each of their troops’ scouts. It also funds some of the troops’ camp­ing expenses, troop equip­ment and other troop expenses.

“By hold­ing this annual event, it pro­vides fund­ing that goes directly to the troops and is most ben­e­fi­cial to our scouts because when they par­tic­i­pate in other troop sup­ported fund rais­ers, 100 per­cent of the profit that each indi­vid­ual scout will earn will be des­ig­nated for his scout­ing pur­poses only instead of the troop receiv­ing half of that profit,” said Mesaros-Gale. “This helps to elim­i­nate the pay­ing of costly activ­ity fees by the par­ents and also helps to moti­vate scouts to par­tic­i­pate in fund rais­ers and to pay his own way,” said Gale, who is Troop Com­mit­tee Chairman.

This year twenty merit badges were cov­ered dur­ing 21 sep­a­rate three hour work­shops. Five of them cov­ered two merit badges at the same time and four of those work shops were for required merit badges for the Eagle Rank. All other merit badges offered are con­sid­ered elec­tive merit badges which a scout needs to com­plete nine for his Eagle Rank and an addi­tional five for each Eagle Palm he earns.

“This is really a great oppor­tu­nity for scouts,” said Mesaros-Gale, who encour­ages the scouts from her troop to attend other Merit Badge Day events includ­ing those as far away as Shep­herdsville, Ken­tucky and those nearby in Delaware and Columbus.

“I’ve received a lot of pos­i­tive feed back about our event and it only encour­ages me to con­tinue serv­ing as the coor­di­na­tor in the future,” she said. “It’s a lot of work but some­thing I feel ben­e­fits the Boy Scouts of Card­ing­ton a great deal,” she concluded.

With the sup­port of the troop, Mesaros-Gale ini­ti­ated this event in 2010.

Spe­cial thanks are extended to the Cardington-Lincoln School Super­in­ten­dent Brian Petrie and High School Prin­ci­pal Joseph Mills for their sup­port and for the use of the high school facil­ity to hold the event. Thank you to CHS Cus­to­dian Super­vi­sor Mark Lem­mon and Cus­to­dian Max Pierce.

Our grat­i­tude is also extended to the BSA Reg­is­tered Merit Badge Coun­selors who instructed the work­shops: Nancy Bat­trell, Bran­don Cromer, Russ Mayer, Terry Angel, Andrew John­son, Scott John­son, Len Robin­son, Mike Gale, Dwight McFar­land (Mor­row County Chap­ter of the Amer­i­can Red Cross Health and Safety Instruc­tor) Troop 30 Scout­mas­ter Randy Craig, John Grega, Jason Ruhl, USDA Nat­ural Resources Con­ser­va­tion Depart­ment, the Mor­row County Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Haught and Mesaros– Gale.

Appre­ci­a­tion is also given to the Troop 30 fam­ily mem­bers for over­see­ing the lunch ser­vice and bake sale, Kroger of Mount Gilead; Pack 30 Cub­mas­ter Scott Counts, Mor­row County Pork Pro­duc­ers, Mor­row County Dairy Asso­ci­a­tion, Mor­row CountyCattlemen’s Asso­ci­a­tion, Coco-Cola, Mans­field; Pepsi Cola, Mans­field; Pea­cock Water, Wyan­dot, Inc; Jerry and Nancy Bat­trell of J & J Auto Parts, JD Equip­ment, Dol­lar Gen­eral Store, Randy and Amy Craig, Doug Hines of Amanda Plumb­ing, KFC Man­ager Rachell West, Jenkins-Vaughan Post 97 of the Amer­i­can Legion and Chris and Beate Payne, Belly Busters, Waldo.

Posted by Randa Wagner on Nov 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.