LEONARD GRAY / L’Observateur / April 26, 2000

NORCO – Look around your community. Many of your leaders are former BoyScouts.

It’s to this purpose – to train youngsters for leadership roles of tomorrow – that the Boy Scouts of America is dedicated.

The Tchoupitoulas District includes the parishes of St. James, St. John theBaptist and St. Charles as well as much of Kenner, Harahan and River Ridge inJefferson Parish.

Industry has long recognized the value of supporting the Scouting movement, and the second annual Industry/Technology seafood boil/fund-raiser held last week was testimony to that support.

Guest speakers included state Secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality Dale Givens and U.S. Secret Service Special Agent-in-Charge of the New Orleans office, Michael James.

Givens said Scouting and the values it teaches is unparalleled and added that when one meets a former Scout who has grown up in the program, “You can always tell.”With true leadership and a take-charge attitude rare in today’s society the value of Scouting reaffirms itself constantly. Givens urged the manyindustry representatives attending the seafood boil to “Do what you can, find a troop and work with it.”James, a 25-year veteran with the Secret Service, gave a brief history of the Service, dating back to its formation by Abraham Lincoln in one of his last acts before his assassination in 1865.

The Secret Service at first concentrated on counterfeiting and other currency crimes and investigated the original Louisiana Lottery in the 1870s.

After the assassination of William McKinley in 1901 the protection of the president became another duty of the Secret Service. Nowadays the SecretService has taken on more assignments, including various forms of cyber- crime, identity theft and internet fraud.

In fact, during a recent internet assault on the Yahoo website, Secret Service agents were able to track the culprit in eight days – to Bulgaria.

And the majority of Secret Service agents are former Boy Scouts.

District Commissioner Dale Pinney likewise endorsed the Scouting movement.

“It’s incredible working with the boys every day,” he said. “We teach valuesof leadership and responsibility. They think they’re having fun.”Pinney noted that with nearly a century of success the Scouting movement is unmatched in its success. “There’s nothing else out there for kids nearly100 years old. We must be doing something right,” he said.Although recent growth in Scouting units has been “phenomenal,” with a 7 percent growth rate during the last year (compared to a national average of 2 percent), “there’s still much to do,” Pinney said.

Toward this end, a Scouting Fair is planned May 20 at Oakwood, Esplanade, Clearview and Plaza malls in the New Orleans area.

In the River Parishes various Scouting units, from Tiger Cubs to Explorers, are active.

The event was hosted by district chairman Bob Monti, president of Quality Wholesale & Supply.

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