We’re starting something new here, what we’re calling “Legacy Interviews”. Technology is allowing us better than ever before to capture some of Scouting’s history, retain it, and share it with others.

Unfortunately our history is passing every day but we’re going to make an effort to capture it while we can. In this, our first “Legacy Interview” we interviewed Eagle Scout and Scouter Walter Helmreich. Still going strong at age 90, he joined Scouting in 1929 in Jefferson County Council, Jefferson City, Missouri. His father helped bring Scouting to Jefferson City. This council later became Lake of the Ozarks Council and then consolidated into Great Rivers Council.

Walter attended the 1933 World Jamboree where he spoke several times with Chief Scout Executive James E. West and even cooked corn for Baden-Powell.

I’ve broken the half-hour interview into four parts. These are standard flash files. Please let us know if you have any trouble with them. Also, please let us know your thoughts about these. We’re preparing some guidelines and interview questions so that maybe others could conduct these interviews and upload them as well.

I believe that every Scout and Scouter has a story to tell. Some may not be as significant as Walter’s but we are all contributors to the Scouting movement. I believe we, this country, need to tell and share these stories. Our needs for leadership, leadership development, and the development of our youth have never been greater. The needs, and maybe the means, are different today than they were in Walter’s youth but our country is better off with Scouting. I’d hate to think where we’d be if we did not have a vital Scouting movement here.

In part one here, Destry and I introduce Walter and he discusses how he got into Scouting. I am struck by, frankly, how similar it is to today.

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