It’s hard to believe that slightly more than a year ago I was cruising the Web and found a site that was looking for a Boy Scout editor. I had never heard of BellaOnLine and never thought that I would be a part of the Voice of Women on the Web. But it has been a fun year and I have learned a lot. The editors and support personnel at BellaOnLine are professional, well trained and caring.

When I started in this position I thought that I might be able to help people in the Scouting community answer questions or resolve problems they had as their sons moved through the Scouting program. And we have help people with questions about Eagle projects, with understanding the Scouting process and with overcoming issues on committees blocking a Board of review.

What I did not anticipate was how much I would learn from being in this position. While there are several interesting items I could discuss, I would like to review three interesting and unique cases:

1. For one article I talked about a poem that I used at Eagle recognition ceremonies and Eagle Courts of Honor. The author of the poem was unknown. I received an email from a lady who said that her grandfather had written the poem and it had appeared in Scouting Magazine in May 1931. The author is S. Kurtz Hingley
2. I have always been interested in stars and photography. I thought it would be interesting to have a quiz about some images from our night time sky. While searching for images I found a number by an astro-photographer named Noel Carboni. I corresponded with him and got permission to use his images in the quiz. Sometime later he was apparently searching for his name on the Web and landed on my quiz. He sent me an email saying that he enjoyed the quiz and hoped that his images would get people more interested in “the night sky.”
3. In my article on summer camps, I talked about my experiences at Camp Aliquippa in Champion, PA. I received an email from a woman who works at a camping resort that now sits on the grounds of where Camp Aliquippa was. Visitors had questions about the camp, the buildings, how the Scouts used the camp, etc. She even sent me a post card that we used to sell in the trading post. Our emails brought back a lot of fond, old memories.

This year has been a very rewarding one for me and, I hope, a useful one for my readers. If you have questions or a topic for an article you would like to addressed, I’d be happy to cover that topic. Happy New Year to all!!