Fall Court of Honor

Our Fall Court of Honor is rapidly approaching. On September 8, 2009, we will meet at 6:30pm in the Crossroads Atrium for a meal. After the meal we will be recognizing the achievements of all of our Scouts over the last six months.

If you would like to volunteer for a leadership role in this or other activities please let us know by attending our committee meeting August 25, 2009 at 7:30pm. We will need someone to be in charge of the food (Main Course to be paid for by Tree Lot revenues), someone to be in charge of tear-down and someone to head up the clean-up. If you are unable to attend the meeting but would like to help, please fill out our contact form here.

Summer Camp

Summer Camp was a huge hit. To get the details check out the report that two of our dads, Max Smith & David Uhr, created.

Camp Sunnen Report 2009

Canceled Meeting – Feb. 12th

Due to the weather and road conditions, we will NOT be having a meeting tonight. If you have signed up for Merit Badge University this weekend, please do not forget! Since the meeting is canceled you will be receiving phone calls confirming your merit badge classes this weekend. If you have not heard which class you are signed up for, please call Ray!

Upcoming Camp Out – Chicago

Once a year the troop makes it way to visit a nearby thriving city for our one “luxury” camp out of the year. This year we are heading up to “The Windy City” for a weekend of museum tours and sight seeing. Chicago is the largest city in the Midwest and is the third largest in the United States with a population of nearly 3 million. The average high temperature for February in Chicago is 35 degrees Fahrenheit. While we are in Chicago, we will be visiting The Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Science and Industry and The Hancock Observatory.

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January Camp Out Review

This past weekend was the first time we were able to use Adam’s Bus. Adam’s Bus is provided for use to Troop 322 by the Adam Wheeler Memorial Fund. The bus is inexpensively “rented” to the troop on a yearly basis to continually replenish and build up the fund. When the need to replace the bus arises in the future, the fund will once again be able to purchase a newer bus and continue providing transportation for the Troop. This bus is still being worked on and will receive a new paint job soon!

We visited Marengo Cave and took the Crystal Palace and Dripstone Trail tours along with taking a short cave crawl. Before entering the cave, the scouts were able to go through the cave simulator. The simulator turned out to be much harder than the actual cave crawl, some of the turns inside the simulator were pretty crazy! Marengo is packed full of cave formations and along with a great tour guide who was able to answer the scouts barrage of questions we had a great tour!

Make sure to check out the whole photo gallery from the camp out in the photos section of the site!

Upcoming Camp Out – Marengo Cave

In January we will be touring Marengo Cave, one of the longest caves in Indiana. The Cave was discovered in 1883 by two school children and has been open for tours since!
Marengo Cave was discovered on September 6th, 1883 by Orris and Blanche Heistand, brother and sister. Orris was 11 years old, his older sister Blanche was 15. Blanche worked as a cook at the local Marengo Academy and had heard some of the boys discussing a sinkhole they had found in the woods nearby. They suspected it might lead to a cave and were talking of returning with lanterns later.

Blanche decided to beat the boys to it. She ran home from school that day, enlisted her brother Orris, took two candles and set off into the woods. Lighting the candles the children crawled down a narrow passageway approximately 50 feet long and were the first humans known to set foot in Marengo Cave. Awed by what they had seen but quickly becoming afraid of the darkness they retreated back to the surface.

Three days later they notified the land owner, Samuel Stewart, whose land they had been trespassing on when they discovered the cave. The kids thought they had found diamonds because of the sparkling flowstone formations their candles revealed briefly while they were inside the cave. Believing the cave to possibly contain diamonds, Stewart quickly organized a group of men from the town and explored the cavern. Guided tours started soon afterwards for one quarter per person.

The Stewart family continued ownership of the cave until 1955 when Floyd Denton purchased the cave with great plans for development. Unfortunately, his plans were cut short when he died of a stroke in 1961. The present ownership purchased the cave in 1973 during the period when Interstate 64 was being constructed through southern Indiana. With better roads, an increasingly mobile population and aggressive promotion and quality improvements, the cave business began to grow again. The cave and surrounding park have grown nearly continuously the past 30 years.

A small crawlway known as “Blowing Bat Crawl” was finally broken through on June 14, 1992 leading to the discovery of the stream level of Marengo Cave. Approximately 3.5 miles were added to the cave’s length with this discovery. The largest room of any cave in Indiana was also discovered in the stream level. There is almost 5 miles of known passageway to date at Marengo Cave.

A few different movies have filmed in Marengo Cave including Madison (2001), starring Jim Caviesel and Jake Lloyd, and, most recently, Fire from Below (2008), starring Kevin Sorbo.

Click here to visit the Marengo Cave website