Boy Scouts receive extra schooling in merit badge skills

Learning new skills, new ideas and different ways of expression is what Merit Badge University is all about, said organizer John Taylor.

Saturday's scouting school held at the Southeast Missouri State University campus attracted 490 boys from 30 scouting troops in Southeast Missouri and 14 troops from Southern Illinois.

Taylor, 20, an Eagle Scout and a sophomore agribusiness major at Southeast Missouri State University, headed the event as scouting chairman for Alpha Phi Omega, a service fraternity modeled on the ideals upheld by the Boy Scouts of America.

"A lot of your time in running this event is spent on the phone soliciting donations and assistance," Taylor said. "I got a phone card to help me out with the expense, but I used up the first 150 minutes within a couple hours of planning."

All that phone time paid off when he garnered enough donations to cover the cost of ordering 180 pizzas, several dozens of doughnuts and 200 beverages for the boys and their chaperones from local Scout alumni who agreed to support the event.

On Saturday, Taylor spent even more time on a cell phone, answering frequent calls from other volunteers coordinating the event.

More than 55 Scouts from Cape Girardeau's troops 5 and 21 attended Merit Badge University. Jackson's Troop 311 and Troop 11 sent more than 60 boys, as well.

16 subjects

Badges were offered in 16 different subjects, including three required for Eagle Scout status: Citizenship of the World, Citizenship in the Nation and First Aid. The courses were taught by local volunteers involved either professionally or academically in their subjects. Many were professors and students at Southeast.

First-aid instructor Roger Shoulders drew upon his knowledge as a registered nurse at St. Francis Regional Medical Center to teach about 23 scouts some basic life-saving techniques.

"What they learn through the first aid merit badge can save their own lives or someone else's," Shoulders said. "It's very important. I actually get a lot of satisfaction from the kids. If I've taught them something they can use to protect themselves, that's all I care about."

Adam Brenning, 12, of Troop 12 in Murphysboro, Ill., earned his first-aid merit badge to meet Eagle Scout requirements.

"I liked learning about making splints and strings," he said. "There was some fun involved. It was kind of like a game. I think it helps you to remember it if it is fun.

Fourteen-year-olds Marcus Painton from Troop 23 in Advance, Mo., and Caleb Sanders of Troop 14 in Piedmont, Mo., enjoyed the crime prevention and fingerprinting class taught by Sgt. Bob Bosse of Southeast's Department of Public Safety.

"It sounded interesting and I thought it would be fun," Painton said, waiting for his turn to lift fingerprints from a window using tape and black powder.

Sanders didn't let being indoors on a rainy weekend dampen his mood.

"It ain't very fun sitting in a class on a Saturday, but finding out about fingerprinting was," he said. "We also found out about a lot of different drugs too."

A rhythmic tribal beat thumped through the door of the class led by Barry Bernhardt, director of university bands at Southeast. Scouts earning music merit badges beat and tapped everyday items to make primitive instruments out of coffee cans, bottles and trash containers.

"Keep the pulse," Bernhardt told two boys slapping a 55-gallon plastic garbage barrel.

He walked around the room pointing to individual Scouts to signal them when to strike their notes in count with the base beat. Before long, the room was filled with a new song created by the Scouts.

"We're making a rhythm band," he said. "We won't necessarily have melody, but we'll have rhythm."

Like many of the other instructors, Bernhardt has been teaching scouts at Merit Badge University for several years.

"I do this for two reasons," he said. "First, I believe in scouting. Second, we're learning. Not only do the boys learn, but we learn something from them, too, in the process."

mwells@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160