Editor’s note: this story has been edited to accurately reflect the Pullman Boy Scout troop numbers

Every Wednesday night, Scout Troops 460 and 560 gather to learn outdoor skills, plan campouts and become better leaders and citizens.

Pullman is home to three troops: Troop 560 for girls and Troops 444 and 460 for boys.

Collin Bannister is a senior at Pullman High School and serves as Troop 460’s senior patrol leader, which is the person who helps lead troop meetings and mentor younger Scouts, he said. 

Bannister joined Scouting in third grade as a Cub Scout, which is for kindergartners through fifth-graders. Around the time he started middle school, he progressed into the Boy Scouts. He said it was a great place to hang out with his friends.

“There were only two other people in my patrol, so it kind of became like we were brothers,” he said.

The values that Scouting teaches are what truly set the program apart. The Scout Law and Oath are ingrained in everything Scouts do, Bannister said.

The Scout Law is a list of 12 qualities, such as trustworthiness, loyalty and helpfulness that a Scout should have. The Scout Oath focuses on a Scout’s duty to God and country, duty to others and duty to self, according to the Boy Scouts’ website.

He said the most important part of the Scout Oath is “to help other people at all times.”

“A leader is someone who does,” Bannister said. “Like being an example for others, not just telling people to do things, but actually doing them. Servant leadership.”

He said being a Scout has helped him in school and other parts of his life.

“It’s taught me how to not only be a great leader, but a great person,” Bannister said.

After high school, Bannister wants to go to WSU, then to law school and to become a defense attorney, he said.

“The way that Scouts plays into that is that I just learned a love for helping people and I see being a defense attorney as a way to help people navigate the legal system,” he said.

On Feb. 1, 2019, girls became eligible to join the Scouting program that was previously limited to boys. Many girls were waiting to join Boy Scouts of America, said Margaret Parsley, vegetable and livestock farmer, and scoutmaster for girls’ Troop 560.

Margaret’s daughter, HannaMae, was one of the girls who joined Scouting as soon as she could. 

Girls could join Cub Scouts over a year before they could join Boy Scouts, Margaret said.

HannaMae said she is proud to be among the first girls to join Scouting. HannaMae joined so she could spend more time outdoors, something she could not do as much of in Girl Scouts, she said.

“[Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts] are different programs and that’s a good thing,” Margaret said.

Margaret grew up in a Scouting family. Her younger brother was a Scout and her father was a scoutmaster. She was a member of the staff at Camp Brinkley, a Scout camp in Snohomish, Washington during her first several summers of college, she said. 

It was on camp staff where Margaret met her husband, she said.

The Parsleys joined Cub Scouts and then Scouts BSA as soon as they could. When it was time to form the Scout troop, several girls who were involved with Venturing, a co-ed Scouting program for ages 14-20, joined along with several girls who crossed over from Cub Scouts. The troop is gradually growing, having added their eighth girl Wednesday night. 

Paul Wheeler is the scoutmaster for the boys’ Troop 460 and works as a researcher in a WSU genomes lab. 

Wheeler was not in Scouts as a kid growing up in Kenya. However, his wife was a Girl Scout and they got their son into Scouting. In 2005, when his son joined Boy Scouts, Troop 460 was in need of a new scoutmaster. Wheeler volunteered and has now been the scoutmaster for 16 years, he said.

Wheeler said he appreciates Scouting for providing kids the chance to think independently and work together as a team.

Wheeler said his favorite Scouting experiences have been on campouts and hikes around the Northwest. Among the many locations the troop has hiked, Wheeler’s favorite is the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, north of Yellowstone in Montana.

Scouts are also known for their service projects. Troops 460 and 560 collect and compost people’s Christmas trees, a project they completed in January, Wheeler said.

Some adult leaders were Scouts themselves, such as John McCloy, a professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. McCloy is an assistant scoutmaster in the troop. When he was younger, McCloy earned his Eagle Scout award, the highest rank available to youth in Scouting, he said.

McCloy serves as an adult leader because he loves the program and the opportunity to go on unique outdoor adventures. He said it is rewarding to see someone go from a goofy kid to someone with leadership skills. 

One thing that makes Scouting unique is that it brings youth of a wide age range together. It is important for younger youth to see older individuals and be inspired by their leadership, he said.

McCloy’s son Henry is in his second year as a Scout after doing Cub Scouts for five years.

Another adult leader, Kris Rollins, said she got involved in Scouting because the Cub Scout Pack needed more adult leaders. Rollins is a clerical assistant in the WSU School of Languages, Cultures, and Race.

She said she served as a den leader for her son’s Cub Scout den, leading lessons and activities for a group of first- through fifth-graders. Rollins said her son is now on staff at Camp Grizzly near Harvard, Idaho.

The pandemic was a real challenge for Scout troops, Wheeler said. The troop improvised, hosting meetings on Zoom and outdoor meetings at Reaney Park in the summer of 2020.

The pandemic continues to affect Scouting in 2022. A weekend camporee was canceled, so the Pullman troops arranged their own camporee with two troops in Moscow at Camp Grizzly, Wheeler said.

The Scouts tested their outdoor skills against the snowy Palouse winter Saturday and Sunday, according to the troop’s Facebook page.

They spent their meeting on Feb. 2 planning the campout and most importantly, what they were going to eat, Wheeler said.

At the end of the troop meeting, after an hour of jokes, menu planning and time spent with friends, Scouts and adult leaders young and old gathered in a circle and sang Scout Vespers. At the end of the song was a question, the answer of which could only be answered individually. “Oh, have I done and have I dared, everything to be prepared?”

Troops 460 and 560 typically meet at Simpson United Methodist Church in Pullman. However, the Methodist Church is closed because of COVID-19, so the other Boy Scout troop in town, Troop 444, offered their meeting space known as the Pullman Scout House to their neighbors.

Families looking to join Scouting can go to beascout.org, enter their zip code and find contact information for troops in their area, Wheeler said. 

The BSA was founded on Feb. 8, 1910. On Tuesday, they celebrated 112 years of Scouting, according to Scouting magazine.