Presented With An Award

I was presented with an award on Saturday night.


The local BSA District we're in (Grayback), was holding it's annual awards dinner on Saturday. I wasn't planning to go. I looked at it as just another district scout activity that I didn't need to go to.


On Thursday (?), I got a call from the member of the bishopric that's over scouting saying I needed to go to the dinner to represent our unit. I said I wasn't that interested in going, I'm sure someone else could go. He said he would let "them" know. He called me back a short time later saying I needed to go so I could give a short report on scout camp. I'm thinking "scout camp? I didn't even go to our councils camp. Why would they want to know about another camp?" He said they really thought I should go. "Who's the 'they'?" The young Men's president and a member of our ward that's in the Stake young men's presidency. I said I would have to find babysitting, he said "they" would find someone in the ward to do it if we needed it.

At this point, I'm thinking some thing's fishy.


The member of the stake young men's presidency in our ward called for Anna (that never happens), and needed her email address. Anna said it was to create an email list of scoutmasters and scoutmaster's wife's for the stake or district or something, and that the Stake president wanted all the scoutmasters and their wives to go to the dinner to support the district, and be familiar with the awards being presented... blah, blah, blah.


In the mean time, I'm trying to make sense of it all.


I bought into the Stake President wanting the scouting leadership in the stake to go, for the reason's Anna gave. The stake over the past few years has really made an effort to boost our participation in the district and council. She said her mom could come and babysit, so we could go. Ok, fine, we'll go.


Saturday evening comes, and Anna's mom shows up, but Anna's dad came too... and in his scout uniform? "He wants to come and check out how your district does their awards." I'm told. Except I know he doesn't care what other districts do. Hmm... I almost hid the camera to see if Anna would ask where it was, but instead, I chose to put it where I could see her get it if she went for it. And guess what... she grabbed the camera before we headed out. Hmmm... Looks like there's another reason I need to be at this awards dinner.


We get to where the dinner is being held, we pay for our dinner, and sit. Anna excuses herself to go to the restroom. She's gone for quite a while. Hmm... When she does reappear, my parents are with her... now it's pretty much out of the bag. I'm there to receive something, but what? I'm figuring it's some unit (troop) level award of appreciation or something like that. But those came and went... Now I'm back to being a little confused, there's only "big" awards left.


Turns out, I was nominated and chosen as the Grayback District Varsity Scout Leader of the Year Award. Wow, really?! I was surprised. I was actually quite honored too. It was pretty cool.


I was glad that I went, and that my parents could be there as well as Anna's dad. It made up for the over-priced, not that good, dinner we had.

Anna was relieved to be done with having to lie and trick me into going.

Why are there two pictures of me with the award? Well, the first one had the green frog in the background looking like it's on my uniform, so we took the second one. But I think I like the first one better after all, because you can see my Tribe of Tahquitz patch. So I put them both here, so you can decide which one you like better, and look at that one.