Participants in 1937 National Jamboree

South Plains Council

P. B. Shannon was a Scout in  in a troop in Levelland, Texas who went to the Jamboree.  The photo was sent to P. B. Shannon by George Mahon who was the representative from Lubbock at the time.  Photo provided by Shannon's Eagle Scout son, Patrick L. Shannon of San Angelo.

The first Boy Scout in the council to register for the Jamboree was Watson Carlock of Troop 8, Lubbock.  Briggs Robertson of Slaton was the second Scout to register for the Jamboree.  

Other Scouts that registered for the Jamboree are:

Post -  A. C. Burman, Jr., Troop 16

Littlefield - Pat Boone, Troop 25

Levelland - J. P. Young, R. B. Young, Kendall Young, Jr., and P. B. Shannon, Troop 24

Olton - Don Melton

Lamesa - Harold Lamberth, Skeet Noret, J. D. Dyer, Jr., Bob Crawley, Chuck Jacobs, Malcolm Harp, Van Greene, Henry Marshall Bennett, Jack McBride, Jean Jones, Bob Beal, William Russell Reising, Allan Barnard, and F. M Mitchell.  Ralph Burleson and Russell Clark, Troop 22

Lubbock - Bedford Raley, Troop 10, John Robert Moxley and Marvin McLarty, Jr.

Sudan - Jack Stone

Scout Leaders Selected


 
Jamboree Scoutmasters:
E.V. Hicks, Troop 3 
Jim White, Troop 8 
Joe L. Kennedy, Troop 10
Assistant Scoutmasters:
Joe N. Spikes, Troop 22, Lamesa
Lesile C. Pratt, Troop 23, Lamesa
Gene Stobaugh, Troop 27, Lorenzo
M. L. Penn, Troop 24, Tahoka
M. K. Young, Troop, Levelland
Azil McClintock

The Scouts gathered at Post Memorial Camp June 21 for a three-day practice encampment.  They went into a three-day practice camp at Washington the evening of June 26.  The Jamboree proper began June 30 and continued through June 9.

Approximately 350 persons gathered June 23, at Post Memorial Camp, Garza County, for a dinner program and visit on the eve of departure of the 62 Scouts and seven adult leaders for the Jamboree.  The special cars the contingent will board was attached to the regularly scheduled Santa Fe train which left Post at 12:37 p.m.

The Scouts left for the Jamboree with a "zoo" comprised of horned frogs, a pair of prairie dogs, and one tarantula.  Letters received at the Scout office indicated that, through trading, the Scouts secured wild life specimens strange to the south Plains to bring home the latter part of the week.  Several of the boys had traded for baby alligators, terrapins, and armadillos.

Bedford Faley, a 14 year old Boy Scout, underwent an emergency operation for appendicitis at the Naval hospital.  His condition was described and an Associated Press dispatch to be "excellent."  To the surprise of even the surgeons who attended him, his recovery was so rapid that he was able to continue the trip with the group to New York at the end of the Jamboree.

On July 7, three thousand Boy Scouts from 11 states reenacted chapters of the history of the western plains.  The sensational "run" when Indian territory of Oklahoma was opened for settlement was part of the pageantry.  The pageant opened with a parade in which each state showed a famous character.  Under the direction of Paul Phieme of Corpus Christi, the Texans portrayed historical character of the Lone Star state.  G. M Qirl of Brownwood directed an Indian dance, and A. J. Stiles of Sweetwater a covered wagon scene.

The Iraan cowboy band of West Texas furnished music, and Ed Schumway of Abilene was songmaster for the closing songs.  A group of Houston, Texas, youths did horseback riding while M. K. Young, Levelland, Texas Scoutmaster and his three sons did trapeze acts.

Sixty-two of the Scouts were homeward bound on July 10, most of them by a circuitous route through New York.  they made the Piccadilly hotel at Fifty-first street and seventh avenue their headquarters.  Following luncheon there, they saw a baseball game and attended the night performance at Radio City music hall.  The following morning they took a motor coach tour of upper New York City and later went to the observation tower of the Empire State building.  They also visited the Statute of Liberty and Ellis Island.  Before returning home they took a motor coach trip to Niagara Falls on which they crossed into Canada.

Experiences Told by F. M. Michell, Troop 22, Lampasas, Scribe

On the train to Washington, a scout handed a horned toad to a trainman.  He dropped it like it was red hot, as he had never seen one before.  The horned toads they took with them to the Jamboree were going like hot cakes and they had given the scouts a lot of fun selling and trading them at the Jamboree.

After their first dining car meal, they discovered ti was the first time that 37 boys on one car and 24 on another had ever enjoyed that experience.

The contingent visited the home of George Washington, the Smithsonian institute and heard congress in debate.  Congress George Mahon of Lubbock district escorted them through the capitol, senate and house office building.  They also occupied reserved seats in the senate gallery secured by senator Tom Connally of Texas.  In the house, they heard Rep. Hamilton Fish of New York attack President Roosevelt and the new deal.

They missed the American League baseball game they were to have seen, due to rain and they later got to see one before they left..

Two South Plains Scouts were among those that received their Eagle Awards form "Uncle Dan" Beard. The boys that received the awards were John Robert Moxley of Lubbock and Jack Stone of Sudan.

The boys noticed that they were attracting a lot of attention, and were having a lot of visitors from the northern and eastern states.  They confessed finally that they liked to hear the boys talk because of their southern accent.

J. D. Dyer, Jr., and his "Texas hairless dog" had been attracting a lot of attention.  In Pittsburgh, especially, it caused a lot of excitement.  Most of the crowd there were afraid to open the box containing the tiny creature - apparently thinking it might be a gila monster, rattlesnake or the like.  Finally one man got up his nerve, opened the box and discovered that a Mexican hairless is nothing more than a hot dog.
 
 

SOUTH PLAINS AREA COUNCIL
ITINERARY FOR ALL JAMBOREE
DELEGATES

June 24th - Leave Post, Texas via Santa Fe  12:37 PM
                 Arrive SIaton 1:20 PM
                 Arrive Lubbock 1:40 PM
                 Arrive Hale Center 2.38 PM
                 Arrive Plainview 2:58 PM
                 Arrive Kress 3:16 PM
                 Arrive Tula 3:32 PM
                 Arrive Amarillo 4:40 PM
                 Supper in Canadian, Texas

Juno 25th - Arrive Kansas City  7:00 AM ,
                 Leave Kansas City 7:40 AM
                 Arrive Chicago via Santa Fe 8:30 PM 
                 Leave via B & O for' Washington D. C. 9:15 PM

June 26th – Route through Cincinnati, Ohio
                  Arrive Washington D. C, 4:55 PM
                  Dinner at Jamboree Camp

June 26th to July l0th - National Jamboree Camp
                  Address all mail as this:
                  John Doe:
                  Troop #24 or #25
                  Section N Region IX
                  National Jamboree Camp
                  Boy Scouts of America
                  Washington  D. C.

July l0th - Leave via B & 0 from Washington to New York City 6 :30 AM
                  Arrive New York City 11:58 AM, July 10th 
                  Headquarters--Piccadilly Hotel until evening of July 11th--9:00 PM
                  Leave New York City 9: 15 PM--July 11th

July 12th - Arrive Buffalo 7:30 AM at New York Central Terminal
                  Tour Niagara during day. .
                   Leave Buffalo at 9: 40 PM - July 12th

July 13th – Arrive Chicago  7:40 AM - July13th at M. C. Station
                  Transfer to Santa Fe Depot.
                  Leave at 10:00 .AM enroute Chicago to Kansas City on Santa Fe.
                  Leave Kansas City - Midnight - July 13th
July 14th - Arrive Amarillo 5:15 PM
                  Leave Amarillo 6 :30 PM
                  Arrive Lubbock 10:00 PM

The Sunday Avalanche Journal, September 26, 1937, stated that one of largest and most striking displays at the 24th annual Panhandle-South Plains fair would b a reproduction in miniature in one end of the structure of the National Jamboree which 63 scouts and leaders from the South Plains Council attended last summer.

This pamphlet was used to promote the Jamboree in the council.  Cost of Jamboree was $85.00

In addition to the $85 Jamboree cost, his uniforms and equipment would cost another $11.35

A Scout-Parent picnic was held at Camp Post on June 22, 1937

Following the Jamboree the council had a "First Annual Jamboree Banquet"
held that September at the Hotel Lubbock.  Here is the program.


Photos of 1937 Jamboree
Additional Photos of 1937 Jamboree
Letters from Marvin H. Carr
Frank Pellizzari, Jr.'s 1937 Jamboree Journal



The information for this page came from the estate of the late Van Greene of Troop 22, Lamesa, Texas.  His son, Bob Greene, gave the information to Greg Nauert of Lubbock.  Also stories found in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal.

Last Undated:  September 6, 2010

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