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Troops have come and gone in Bonner Springs, but there is at least one factor behind Boy Scout Troop 149’s staying power.

The troop, which currently boasts about 20 Boy Scouts, is celebrating its 50-year anniversary this year — a direct result of consistent parental and adult support over the years, says Merle Schneck.

“That’s the reason for the success of 149 lasting 50 years and I think they’ll be here another 50 years because we’ve got this ingrained in them to keep these people coming,” Schneck said.

He was talking about those adults who serve on the Hoot Owls, a group of committee members, several of whom were once members of the troop themselves, who support Troop 149. Schneck says having that support from older individuals who have experienced what it’s like to be a Scout, has helped to keep the youths involved in scouting for longer than they would have without it.

“Essentially, because of the parent or adult … support, the troop runs approximately or pretty close to 10 percent of the boys that (join Troop 149) have become Eagle Scouts, which is considerably more than the approximate 2 percent nationwide,” Schneck said. “They become Eagles because the troop committee supports them and pushes them and makes damn certain they get the job done.”

Boy Scout troops formed in Bonner have had a hard go of it through the years, Schneck says. He wrote a brief synopsis of scouting in Bonner throughout history, in which he said that two troops formed in 1920 had disbanded by 1926. Another troop, formed later that same year, had fallen, as he said, “by the wayside” by the early 1930s.

And Schneck isn’t the only one to blame the situation on the lack of supportive adults. In the history, Schneck shares a quote from Bonner resident Archie Dial, who said in a 1945 Chieftain article, “The community has had troops in the past, and the only reason they didn’t last was because the adults and parents did not lend their active and steady support.”

Boy Scout Troop 149 formed in 1960 as a group of 15 members. One of those original Boy Scouts, Bruce Coleman, went on to serve as a Scout Master of the troop and, later, a committee member. He remembers well a situation during a winter camping trip when one of his Scout Masters stayed up all night one night making sure the fire didn’t go out so that the Boy Scouts would stay warm.

“That was pretty impressive that here he was concerned enough about all of us and knew that to a certain point we have not have been quite as prepared or that there’s always the potential that someone needed that help,” Coleman said.

Coleman said it wasn’t until he became involved in the troop as an adult that he began to appreciate what that added support does for the survival of a Boy Scout troop.

“As a boy, I didn’t realize … didn’t pay much attention to (the adults) back at that time … (I) didn’t realize how much was going on behind the scenes,” Coleman said. “As I got to be an adult, I realized how critical to the success (the adult volunteers are). If they weren’t there, the program would just eventually disappear.”

Troop 149 is still going strong after 50 years, and Coleman said its survival is a testament to how affective that support has been. And for any organization, he said, 50 years is certainly nothing to turn your nose up at.

“Well it’s pretty impressive from the standpoint that most organizations just don’t last that long, whether it’s a business or whatever,” Coleman said. “You just don’t have 50 years of continual existence for most of them, so that part is pretty neat.”

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