By STEPHANIE BUNKER
Moapa Valley Progress
The Overton Park was bursting with 168 young boys and 80 adult leaders over the weekend for the annual Cub Scout Day Camp event. The Camp which took place on Friday and Saturday last week, turned out to be a big hit for the young Wolves, Bears, and Weblos in local Cub Packs. T
At Day Camp the Cub Scouts pass off a lot of requirements they need to progress to the next level. But everyone has a great time doing it.
“The bottom line is to have fun,” said local scout leader Willie Frehner, who was the “Ring Leader” of the Circus-themed camp.
The boys rotated through eleven different activity stations. With 50 minutes at each station there was ample opportunity to learn and experience the task at hand. The boys could even pass off more than one requirement at several of the stations.
By the time they finished with Day Camp the young Scouts could have 20-30 requirements completed. The stations were hosted by local Cub Packs. Most of the stations included games or other activities. Some of the favorites were the shooting stations. Other stations included engineering plans and building their own paper airplanes, playing a game of football, learning first aid, learning how to use a compass and reading a map.
A big favorite for the Scout was launching rockets made out of card stock. The rockets were launched with an air compressor and would shoot high into the air while a group of boys tried to catch it on its descent. Frehner remarked that the boys would launch and catch rockets all day if they let them.
The shooting events included shooting BB guns, bows and arrows, and new to day camp were sling shots. The new Cub Scout program specifies that the shooting events can only be completed at Day Camp.
Stephen James and his Webelos constructed wooden airplanes for the scouts that won the sling shot competition.
At the archery station the boys got to learn what the different parts are called and techniques to shooting the bows as well as the joy of loading their own arrow and sending it flying to the target. Carter Brumett said the BB gun shooting was his favorite station. He had never shot a BB gun before and he shot the bull’s-eye on the target once and scored 111 points in 20 shots.
Other stations let the kids assemble small wooden canons and a rack to hang a mug on; they stamped leather and braided lanyards.
The boys and leaders had a fun day outside playing games and learning important skills. Saturday was a cloudy and colder day but Tara Neilson a volunteer leader said, “It’s been fun and it’s been a nice day because the sun hasn’t been beating down on us.”
