New community strip images

Before colorful Council Shoulder Patches (CSP's) made their way onto the scene in the early 1970's, Scouts wore Community and State strips on their left shoulder to identify the home of their troop. The strips were made of red twill with white lettering which is why they are also known as RWS patches. These were originally lettered in red on dark khaki decades ago, and can sometimes be found on old uniforms unearthed from the attic or basement.


Recently I was provided images of an old Newport News KRS and a Fort Monroe RWS to add to the Peninsula Council Community Strips page. If you have knowledge of other community strips from troops that were in Peninsula Council, please let me know so that I may add them to the list. If you can provide pictures that's even better!

2007 SR-7A Conclave images added

Way back in May Tim Ewing sent me a picture of the new Wahunsenakah Lodge flap issued for the 2007 SR-7A Conclave that was held April 27-29 at Pipsico Scout Reservation. Larry Johnson sent also me pictures of the Conclave patches, Vigil rededication tokens, and hatpin. For some reason I prepared the pictures and uploaded them to my server but completely forgot to link them from the appropriate pages. So today I added links on the SR-7A page to the 2007 Conclave items, and added the Conclave flap to the Wahunsenakah Lodge 333 page.

July 1993 Kryer added to online archive

Tim Ewing kindly supplied me with a scanned version of the July, 1993 edition of the Kecoughtan Kryer, which I have converted to PDF and added to the online archive.

This edition is particularly interesting as it reports on the final SE-8 conclave hosted by Tutelo Lodge in April of 1993 at Camp Powhatan before the section was dissolved as part of the national realignment of OA lodges into four regions. This newsletter also reports about the very first Conclave of Kecoughtan's new Section SR-7, hosted by Occonneechee Lodge 104 at Camp Durant near Raleigh, NC on the same weekend. Kecoughtan sent delegations to both events.

Note: According to the History of Itibapishe Iti Hollo #188, the 1993 Conclave at Camp Durant was in fact the last SE-7 event:

In April of 1993, Itibap attended the last SE7 Old North State Conclave hosted by Occoneechee Lodge 104. Following that weekend, the section was redrawn to include four new lodges from Virginia. The section is now named SR7 because of the new Southern Region.

This Kryer also includes two high-quality photo pages that include identifying captions for the Arrowmen that are featured in the pictures. One photo shows then Lodge Chief Dan Raymond serving breakfast to the two "tooth docs," Ron Godby and Barry Green, who purchased his services in an auction the night before.

The SE-8 conclave report mentions that attendees to the final section event were given an SE-8 chenille patch. I'm working to gather more information about this patch for a future article on this web site.

Black bordered Chanco flap mystery

My friend Tim Ewing has a black bordered flap from Chanco Lodge. This item is quite a mystery, because there is no listing in any emblem reference of Lodge 483 ever producing a flap with a black border. I've consulted DeWitt Holland, who knows more about Chanco issues than anyone else I know, to see if he might be aware of a prototype or sample Chanco flap, and his reply was: "I AM 100 PERCENT SURE CHANCO LODGE NEVER MADE ANY FLAP WITH A BLACK BORDER."

The patch appears to be the same design as a Chanco S1 flap, as there is no FDL and it has a cloth back. There are imperfections in the green background embroidery just to the left of the word "Lodge" and directly above the brave's head where the twill base material is evident. These areas are also evident on the back of the patch.



Michael McCaughan, an avid collector of Virginia OA items, speculates that the patch may have been rebordered as a sample by the manufacturer. That theory may explain why some trace of yellow is visible under the black threads. A permanent marker would probably bleed into nearby areas beyond the merrowed edge.

Do you have information or theories about this patch? If so please post your comments here.

Kryer archive reaches 101 editions

Former Kecoughtan Chief Morris Friedman kindly loaned me his collection of Kecoughtan Kryer newsletters to scan and post to the online archive of the newsletter of Lodge 463. With the addition of these editions the number of Kryers now available has reached 101.

There are still many years the Lodge was in existence for which I have no editions of the Kryer, or just one or two. Some of these are during the Lodge's final years of service before the merger with Chanco 483 in January of 1996. Please take a moment to dig through your Scout memorabilia and see if you might have an edition that's not in the archive to help complete this unique collection.