Scouting, Volume 69, Number 2, March-April 1981 Page: 48
58, E1-E24, [34] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Explorer Explosion (from page 47)
One-on-one meetings,
career interest surveys,
effective Firstnighters—
these are the keys to
Clinton Valley Council's
Exploring success.
With it the division could talk directly with
the individual Explorer. Part of the foun-
dation was gearing up for high school
career interest surveys.
As 1978 ended, the need for additional
funding for Exploring became greater. For
the first time in the council, supporters of
Exploring were asked to give through
sustaining membership enrollment.
Foundation support, which had been
minimal, was expanded. And the council's
two major United Way organizations
(Oakland and Macomb Counties) im-
pressed with what the Exploring Division
was trying to do on the high school cam-
puses, increased their support.
"Exploring and the potential for Ex-
ploring became the potential for dramatic
increases in our support from United
Way," says Hays. "With the source of
funding in place, we began to identify the
candidate for our second Exploring
professional."
He had someone in mind, actually.
Wouldn't it be special, Hays thought, to
have the first and second National Explorer
Presidents working together as Exploring
professionals in the same council? So he
called Larry Simpson in Princeton, N.J.,
and began to talk.
Simpson's Scouting background was
quite different from Larry Eisenberg's.
Simpson had been neither a Cub Scout
nor a Boy Scout in his hometown of
McEwen, Tenn. Only a few months before
the first National Explorer Presidents'
Congress in 1971 in Washington, D.C., he
had joined a science and engineering post.
Simpson was elected president of his
post by exactly a one-vote margin. At the
Middle Tennessee Council's Delegates
Conference, he was elected chairman by
perhaps two votes. He certainly had not
gone to the congress with the expectation
of becoming president. As he now
remembers it, he was at the right place at
the right time in both instances.
And that's the way it was for him when
Sonny Hays asked him to join the Clinton
Valley Council's Exploring team. After
graduating from Princeton University in
1978, he started to work for a consulting
firm. The product line that he was as-
signed to was sold. Simpson began looking
for a new career, and came to Pontiac in
May of 1979.
Not long after Larry Simpson joined the
staff, Dr. Coffman resigned from Oakland
University to become president of Spring
Arbor College in Jackson, Mich. Without
missing a step, Ralph Hahn—region gen-
eral manager of Consumer Power, a large
utility company—stepped in as vice-pres-
ident for Exploring.
The rest is history. The resulting resur-
gence in Exploring membership in 1979
was phenomenal. As a matter of fact the
record was so outstanding that Scouting
magazine sent me to Pontiac to see if the
council had stumbled on to some kind of
new tool that other councils might be able
to use.
"We did it by the book," Larry Eisen-
berg explained. "We did it the way it's
been done for the last 10 years of contem-
porary Exploring. Larry Simpson and I
both took a list of people and went out to
see them."
Basically, the two former national Ex-
plorer presidents pounded the pavements
selling Exploring. They explained over
and over again in hundreds of one-on-one
situations that Exploring is the best way
for a youngster to look at a prospective
career before he or she ever leaves high
school.
'7 took from the rich and gave to the poor. So, the rich became poor
and the poor became rich. So, I had to take from the new rich and give
to the new poor. So, the new poor became rich and the new rich
became poor. So ..
48
March/April 1981 Scouting
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 69, Number 2, March-April 1981, periodical, March 1981; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353561/m1/96/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.