Ludlow's Lesson #9: Hod and the Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts were founded in 1910, just three years before Hod was born. Hod got involved with scouting early in life while living in Keokuk, IA. It was there that he met Leon Polley, another scout.

He eventually became an Eagle Scout and was invited to Glacier National Park with Boy Scouts from around the U.S. While there they worked on a trail system around Lake McDonald and also Bowman Lake, in the far northwest corner of the park.

He became so involved with scouting that in the summer of 1940 he wrote to Boy Scout headquarters in St. Paul to see about a job at the canoe base in Ely. In 1941 he was invited to Scouting Executive Training School and was then offered the position in Ely. He got permission from National Headquarters to build a new base. He gathered a crew and they moved to Moose Lake for the winter. He drove to Virginia with a trailer and spent $100 on food FOR THE ENTIRE WINTER!!! He said a wind had gone through a stand of Norway pine on the Echo Trail and he was able to put in a sealed bid and won the logs to use for the base.

The following winters he spent in Bemidji as a Scout Executive. In the fall of 1944 he became the Camp Director at Camp Tonkawa on Lake Minnetonka. He ran the Scoutmaster's Training School that summer and the following summer had groups of Boy Scouts.

In 1945, with a growing family and having a hard time making ends meet, Hod got out of scouting. It was then that he started building Coffeetime!