– Bryan On Scouting

Barry Walsh asks the Scout to imagine they have a magic wand and can change anything about the troop. Quynh-Thi Vidal’s preferred line of questioning starts with, “What was your biggest hurdle to get here? And how can I help you overcome it next time?” And Ray Lightner’s favorite question is simple but informative: “Are…

Scouts love wilderness adventure. They’ll find it in Gary Paulsen’s Northwind, a new novel from Macmillan Publishing Group. Paulsen, who passed in October, was a longtime contributor to Boys’ Life (now Scout Life) magazine. He wrote more than 200 books for children and adults, selling more than 35 million copies worldwide. Three of his novels — Dogsong (1986), Hatchet (1988) and The Winter…

Going outdoors in the cold is tricky. Going outdoors in the cold with Cub Scouts is extra tricky. The last thing you want to do is create an impression for youngsters that cold-weather outings have to be miserable. Check out this story from the January-February 2010 issue of Scouting magazine to see what we learned…

What Anna Fineberg remembers most is how scared she was.  Everything changed on that Thursday in 2019 when Anna’s California high school experienced a school shooting. Two of her classmates were killed. “I was scared of my school,” she says. “As a honor student and varsity athlete, my school was a safe place. In 48…

Orlando Busino, longtime contributor to Boys’ Life and, later, Scout Life, has died. He was 95. Busino was the artist who created ‘Gus,’ the lovable large white dog who first graced the pages of Boys’ Life in January 1970 and was featured in almost every issue since. The last ‘Gus’ cartoon will appear in the…

During baseball season, Roger Williams Park practically vibrates. The public park in Providence, R.I., draws youth baseball players from across the area for inning after inning of friendly but fierce competition. It’s not just the kids who show up. Parents and grandparents, second cousins and great uncles surround the fields, loudly cheering for their favorite…

If you want high adventure, you can find it at the Summit Bechtel Reserve’s Paul R. Christen National High Adventure Base and the James C. Justice National Scout Camp in West Virginia. At James C. Justice National Scout Camp, Scouts can enjoy climbing, aquatics, fishing, shooting sports, cycling, skateboarding and working on almost 50 merit…

If you enjoy the water, then Sea Base is the place to be. Sea Base, stationed in the Florida Keys, operates 19 different programs in the Bahamas, Florida Keys and U.S. Virgin Islands. Scouts can choose to camp, paddle, sail, fish, scuba-dive or participate in multi-adventure or a STEM adventure. You can select a specialized…