Naperville's oldest Cub Scout pack celebrates 70 years
Seventy seconds is a long time in the attention span of kids brought up on technology, but more than 40 youngsters in Naperville recently celebrated a milestone much longer - 70 years.
The boys are members of Cub Scout Pack 66, the oldest pack chartered in Naperville, which celebrated its 70th anniversary this month.
Founded in 1945 at Ellsworth School when it was one of only two public elementaries in the city, the pack now calls Highlands Elementary home. That's where first- through fifth-grade boys of today gathered with 75- to 80-year-old boys of the past to hear stories of how Scouting affected the older men's lives.
Packmaster Eric Pfeiffer brought back founding member Ronald Hiltz and early members Clyde Ubele and Naperville Mayor Emeritus George Pradel as speakers to share memories of their Scouting years and beyond.
"The things we do in Scouting can lead to opportunities through their life," Pfeiffer said. "We try to always provide a moment to the boys where they understand their role as community members and citizens and make those connections to how they can lead a life that gives back to their community."
When the pack was formed shortly after World War II, joining it was the thing to do for neighborhood boys, said Hiltz, 80, of Naperville. Everyone knew everyone in the small-town Naperville of the day, so when a pack was forming, Hiltz and his twin brother jumped on board.
Soon, they were tasting their first marshmallows - a new treat - as the pack gathered at Seager campground to have bonfires in the great outdoors.
"We made our seats out of little wooden barrels that were used for shipping nails in that my dad brought home from his job at Kroehler (furniture manufacturing)," Hiltz said. "We painted them, padded one end and put some leather over them."
The seats were an early do-it-yourself project and a lesson in creating something useful. Hiltz said he doesn't know what happened to them after he graduated from the pack, so they're lost to history now.
"They were the things from the past that you don't run into anymore," he said.
But he brought them back to life as he presented their story in an essay to be read to the current Scouts at the anniversary ceremony. Pradel used the occasion to teach boys of the solid values he learned as a Scout, those of kindness, obedience, honesty, sharing, trust.
"I told them that all the things we learned in Scouting made us ready for life," Pradel said.
Packmaster Pfeiffer, whose fifth-grade son, Timmy, has been a member since he was in first grade, said volunteer parent leaders aim to teach similar values today through activities such as hiking, picking up trash along an adopted stretch of Hillside Road, walking in parades and raking leaves for older neighbors.
"It's a combination of learning about citizenship and leadership and our natural world," Pfeiffer said. "We certainly do a lot of outdoor activities with our boys."
Scouts were most intrigued by hearing of the service to young people their predecessors have provided in their life, like Pradel's efforts to launch Safety Town and lead tours for kids like them. Pradel told the boys Scouting can be a launchpad for anything they want to achieve.
"I don't know what you're going to be when you get older," Pradel said, "but I know that the kids in my den have been doctors, lawyers - one became an admiral in the Navy."