The Olson Era (1978-2002)
Part 2
The Lodge continued to grow over the next few years with the lodge sending a contingent to the 1988 to see Todd Trapnell receive the Order’s Distinguished Service Award. Craig Salazar won two special elections to serve as section chief when Todd Trapnell was selected as region chief and when the sitting section chief was elected national chief.
1986-87 Region Chief
At the next National Conference our lodge was represented extremely well. Our contingent of 53 was noted for helping setting up the Region wide game. The region chief was so impressed that after the conference he wrote a letter to the lodge thanking us again for the help and stating that the wide game would not have been possible without our lodge helping. Also the lodge saw the presentation of the DSA to Mr. David Garrett. The lodge was also growing in well when the Spring Ordeal had the second largest ordeal in lodge records with 85 new brothers.
Red and Blue Arrow training was the standard training of the time and in 1992, this training was replaced by the Lodge Leadership Development Conference (LLDC). This was just one of the times that our lodge training transformed to meet the needs of the Arrowman of our lodge. Former Lodge Chief Mr. David Garrett took the mantle of Lodge Adviser. One of the first items that Mr. Garrett brought with him was to appoint a specific adviser for each individual officer. The tradition before was to have a few associate lodge advisers that were appointed to help but not assigned to specific lodge officers.
Back Row: Howard Olson, Chris Snoddy, Jimmy Kelly, Barry Salewsky, Todd Trapnell, Craig Salazar
Middle Row: Carl Head, Chase Wrenn, Eddie Lee, Adam Randolph, Michael Nation, Walter Koth
Front Row: Joe Gilbert, Scott Bennett, Brian Wildes, Brad Schaffer
Section conclave came around and in 1992 our lodge won the “Quest for the Golden Arrow”. At this conclave lodge members Michael Salazar and Jim Schwab were elected as section chief and section secretary respectively. Then with NOAC coming to Knoxville Tennessee this year, our lodge was again in the lime light and in a position to show dedicated service to the nation. The biggest opportunity that our lodge created was called “Trail to NOAC”. This was planned so that that lodge contingents could stop at Boxwell Reservation and sleep the night on their way to NOAC. A hot meal was also made available to lodges for a small fee. Many lodges took advantage of this and lodges traveled though Boxwell Reservation the week before NOAC. This was all on the way to having 77 members drive themselves to NOAC to enjoy the fellowship and fun of NOAC.
As scouting changed and evolved our lodge continued to evolve with it. One item was in support of our own council. At the council’s recruiting event, Scout-O-Rama, the lodge started a tradition that many scouts still remember. The tradition of having a Tee-Pee set up for Cub Scouts to see and even some years play in. Scouting itself also changed this year, in moving from six (6) regions to four (4). This fact would not have been a real difference to many in our lodge except for the events in December of 1992. At the 1992 planning meeting our lodge member Michael Salazar was elected by the section chiefs of the newly formed southern region to be the first Southern Region chief. Michael had previously served as a lodge treasurer, vice-chief, section vice chief and a section chief.
Innovation was not at an end for the lodge, in 1993, an idea was created to sell a Gold Card for the first time. The Gold Card or annual pass was a registration for all the lodge events for one discounted rate. The lodge continued to develop new ideas and build upon the strengths. A new committee (or clan as it was called at the time) was created to help build upon several of the projects that our lodge had finished. Building upon the building of the amphitheater, and the recent renovation of the lodge building, our lodge created the construction committee. Lodge member Mr. John Sain was tasked with leading this committee. The construction committee was to work in harmony with the council to provide talented adult manpower for long term improvement projects at the council camps.
1993 Southern Region Chief
With the lodge growing, we continued to do many of the thing that allowed our youth and lodge to grow. The lodge was for the first time, but not the last, a three peat “Quest for the Golden Arrow” champion. Also at the 1994 conclave, lodge members Jim Schwab and Ben Whitehouse were elected to Section Chief and Section Secretary respectively. The Spring Ordeal was the largest in history with 196 new members being inducted into the Order and a record of 195 Arrowmen attended the Fall Fellowship. The lodge also staffed two service corps for the council this year. The first was the service corps at the National Planning Meeting, held at Opryland Hotel and the second was a Service Corps to the Council Jamboree. The lodge ended 1994 with highest Brotherhood percentage in lodge’s history at 52.5%. This was such an accomplishment because Nationwide the lofty goal was that of 30%.
The 1994 NOAC was of significant note to our lodge. During this conference our contingent was there to see our lodge have three Wa-Hi-Nasa members presented the national Distinguished Service Award. Lodge members Jim Schwab, Michael Salazar and Mr. Craig Salazar. All there were former Section Chiefs and served in different ways. This number of recipients from a single lodge is unheard of in the history of the Order. This is also the first time in the history that a pair of brothers received the award at the same conference, and only the second set of brothers to receive the award.
In 1995 the lodge again turned its attention to hosting the section conclave. The lodge, under the leadership of Daniel Contrell, Josh Sain and Mr. Chris Snoddy, developed a lodge host flap for the event with three varieties of border colors. The first was for the conclave workday (blue border), the second was for those who helped with set up and tear down of camp at the Conclave (gray border), and finally a third (black border) that was offered to lodge members at the conclave to trade. This conclave was reportedly “over the top”, especially with Josh and Chris at the helm. At this event Mr. Olson stepped down as the section adviser and Mr. David Garrett was appointed to the post. Although dedicated at the Ordeal in 1993, the lodge decided that it would be appropriate to re-dedicate the lodge building as the “Howard B. Olson Order of the Arrow Lodge” in front of the many people Mr. Olson worked with on the section level. Conclave could not have been better considering that it was concluded by one of our youth leaders, Scott Danton, being elected as the next Section Chief.
The lodge seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds at this point. The Spring Ordeal of 1995 was again the largest in history with 236 new Arrowmen. With this growth also came an opportunity to help our council more. The previous year the council decided that Camp Murray was a great footprint to build a Cub Scout camp. This new camp was sponsored by Gaylord entertainment. All of these decisions lead to the lodge sponsoring a work day to help put the final touches on the new camp before the camp dedication.
Wa-Hi-Nasa during this time period also grew into financial stability. This effort and growth was due to the efforts of Mr. Wynn Baker and Mr. Gordon Vaughn. The lodge committed to raise money for the Council Capital Campaign, and Council Executive Ken Connelly agreed to place the OA’s donated funds in a special account to be used for the upkeep of the Olson OA Lodge. A total of $30,000 was placed in this account. Once this fund was created the council allowed the lodge to give the first James E West awards to our members. All of the awards given between 1994 and 1996 were given from this donation to the endowment.
As we continued to grow the 1996 conclave saw the election of then Lodge Chief Josh Sain to the post of Section Chief. Josh was succeeded as Lodge Chief by Jamie Pfeffer. Then the rest of the lodge decided to pick things up a notch. At the Spring Ordeal, there was the largest recorded number of members sealing their membership in the Brotherhood with 69. Yes, the ceremony team had a late night having to do 2 brotherhood ceremonies. The National Conference in 1996 saw our lodge send 59 contingent members and 16 staff members. This is always important as those who go to NOAC are typically those who come back to the lodge on FIRE for scouting and the lodge program.
We also continued to serve our council. One project was to create a service corps for the Council Jamboree. With over 100 arrowmen the lodge manned the trading post, ushered at the arena show, and served at several food service booths set up all around the jamboree.
As the 1996 came to an end several things happened at once. Ray Capp was finally presented the OA’s Distinguished Service Award. Ray was a young man when he was traveling abroad and spent a semester in Japan. While he was there Ray helped the Trans-Atlantic Council form an OA lodge. For this service here, Ray was selected in 1973 to receive the DSA but was out of the country during NOAC and this was never presented. This presentation really was the highlight of this winter banquet.
Just a little over two weeks after this our current section chief Josh Sain went to the OA’s National Planning Meeting and was elected by his fellow section chiefs as the 1997 National Vice Chief of the Order. As National Vice Chief, Josh was able to do a great number of things to help the Order. At the National Jamboree there was typically one day set aside for an OA show. So at the 1997 National Jamboree, Josh served as the keynote speaker for this show. There is a hand held video recording by Carl Head of this presentation still shown in the lodge trophy case. Josh served well in this position, visiting Section Conclaves and staffing National Leadership Seminars (NLS) throughout the country. At the end of October of 1997, Josh passed away in a car accident. The outpouring of emotion from all over the country was overwhelming.
As 1998 began many thoughts were dedicated to how to remember and memorialize Josh. Our lodge renamed the Allogagan (Lenni-Lenape word for Servant) Award to honor Josh as the Josh Sain Memorial Award. Building on the vision of the utility of a building designed for training on Boxwell by the Cope course, the lodge envisioned this becoming a High Adventure Area and created the $111 flap to help raise the necessary funds to build this building. As with any of the high dollar flaps, 1 was given to a youth at each of the lodge events and one was given to the youth that won the Flying Eagle logo design contest. Even though the council decided to create a different building than the one that lodge proposed, this donation gave the lodge the ability to name the entire High Adventure Area at Boxwell.
Following this success the lodge built the Josh Sain Gateway to High Adventure at the opening of this area that now encompasses the High Adventure Center, the COPE area, the climbing/repelling tower, shotgun range, and the pool. The Section SR-6A also for a time offered the Josh Sain Best All-Around Lodge. This award lost traction after five years when the only winner of this award was the Wa-Hi-Nasa Lodge. The national OA committee commissioned that a yellow ribbon be attached to the National Vice-Chief’s bonnet as a permanent reminder of Josh’s cheerful service and dedication to servant leadership. Then they also created the Josh Sain Memorial Scholarship. This scholarship is provided for the immediate past National and Region officers, and immediate past Section Chiefs. This scholarship is based on merit and performance in their respective roles with consideration to the academic achievements while serving in these roles. Josh was truly special and the lodge was not the same after the passing of Josh.
As the lodge was celebrating the election of Josh as the National Vice Chief, Chris Davis and Mr. Craig Salazar saw to the creation of a new communication tool, a lodge website. Later that same year our web page began the first of many accolades with top honors from the Lord Baden-Powell Award Committee. These top honors was the Three Fleur-de-lis Award. At this time also national helped in recruitment of new members by changing the number of youth that can be elected from an unit in the single election. The youth could now vote for any and ALL of those eligible to be inducted into the Order of the Arrow. This change again allowed for the Spring Ordeal to be largest in lodge history with 245 candidates.
Front Row: Howard Olson, Anne Milton, Travis Spivey
Back Row: David Garrett, Josh Sain, Morris Smiley, Chris Snoddy, Carl Head, Kris Kane
Our relationship with the council also changed as the OA Secretary at the Scout office retired after a 30+ year career at the office. Mrs. Minton was a steady fixture at the office that kept an eye out for the lodge and helped with almost everything that the lodge did over her time. This year also saw the end of a long term service project the lodge preformed for the council. For many years the lodge took tickets, provided a camping demonstration, performed a Pow-Wow, and held a lodge booth to answer OA questions at what was the Scout Circus but changed name to Scout-O-Rama. With the loss of this service project the lodge began the process of looking for another project that would help the council and the Scouts of Middle Tennessee.
Near the end of 1998 a small group got together to talk about how our lodge can better train our members to help our lodge grow. Among these members were Brad Goodwin, Jonathan Wright and Mr. Andy Verble. This small group saw the need for lodge training to expand from the one day event into a weekend. Many great ideas came out this meeting that truly revolutionized the way that our lodge does training. The NEW Order of the Arrow University (OAU) went to the Ridley 4-H Center in Columbia as a location that could provide not only housing but also food services for the weekend. A second novelty was that each year the participants could earn a degree, bachelors the first year, in a specific area of interest of the lodge. Some of these majors were lodge management, chapter management, ceremonies, and leadership.
The lodge continued to do the great things that it has become known for. At the 1999 Section Conclave the lodge won the Quest for the Golden Arrow for the first time since 1994 and Lee Thackston was elected the Section Vice-Chief. The lodge went into the Ordeal season with several construction projects outside of the Howard B. Olson Lodge building. These were replacing the rear deck of the health lodge and building a gateway to the entrance of the lodge building. This gateway was dedicated at the Fall Fellowship in 1999. This year also there was a tornado the ravaged Middle Tennessee. An article in the OA’s National Bulletin highlighted the 4,000 hours of service the Cogioba Chapter donated to help clean up storm damage.
As the lodge continued to grow and the success of OAU became evident, the lodge saw the need to again change the number of lodge officers by adding a third Vice-Chief. One Vice-Chief to lead each of the major events in the year, OAU (Training), Ordeals, and the Fall Fellowship. During the Fall Fellowship of 1999, the lodge elected three Vice-Chiefs for the first time. The Lodge rules were modified for officers from a single chapter at this point also. The lodge rules were amended to say that only two youth from the same chapter can hold the office of chief and vice chief, with a total of three youth maximum from any chapter may be officers.
The lodge saw an unique opportunity when an unapproved lodge flap surfaced at the Fall Fellowship of 1998. When searching for what to do with these “ghost flaps” the lodge created an Opportunity Award. Arrowmen from all across the lodge were allowed to work on a set of requirements throughout the year and earn this flap. The categories of requirements for this award were lodge opportunities, chapter opportunities, and Scouting opportunities. Each category had specific requirements for Arrowmen with some having a youth or adult variety. All requirements had to be completed by the Fall Fellowship were there was an award ceremony. Members were given the first flap as the award and then were given the opportunity to purchase more in rounds of 5 flaps per round for all those that wanted extra flaps. All of the proceeds from these flaps were given to the Josh Sain Memorial Fund. At the Fall Fellowship, 90 Arrowmen earned the Opportunity Award. As this program was very well received the lodge decided to extend this program to 2000 also. This year the award was a red ghost flap, which some people call the blood flap.
As the century drew to a close, Jim Cheatham a three time section chief from Ittawamba, was elected as the Southern Region Chief. To fill this vacancy, Wa-Hi-Nasa member Lee Thackston was elected as the Section Chief. Then as the new century began, OAU grew to need a new location. The Smyrna National Guard Armory was selected to become the new home of OAU. This arrangement with the base lasted for several years. The lodge also used the opportunity of our council hosting the BSA National Meeting at the Opryland Hotel. For this event our lodge recruited a service crew that boasted 232 lodge members. The second OA service corps was raised to help at the Council Jamboree.
NOAC was held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville this year also. The lodge put together one of the largest contingents in our history with over 100 Arrowmen from Wa-Hi-Nasa combined with staff and contingent combined. The lodge again prepared a Trail to NOAC allowing contingents the ability to stay at Bowell on the way to NOAC. Once at NOAC our lodge won the Southern Region OA jeopardy contest and finished second in the nation. It was at this time also that the lodge communications took on an upgrade. Our lodge website was moved to the domain name of www.wa-hi-nasa.org. This made the ability to find the lodge website much easier and thus much more readily available to Arrowmen.
When the century came into full swing the lodge attention turned to hosting conclave. Over 100 Arrowmen came to the workday event to help prepare Boxwell for this event but also earned a special boarder flap of the three flap series produced for this conclave. As conclave approached it was obvious that it was going to be a big event. Over 700 Arrowmen from around the section made their way to Boxwell Reservation, making this one of the largest conclaves in recent history. Not only did our lodge win the Quest for the Golden Arrow but Clay Capp and Michael Mendenhall were elected as the Section Chief and Secretary respectively. This would set Clay up well for the future. Jacob Thorington and Mr. Ben Whitehouse then turned the excitement about conclave back to the lodge and created the Murder Mystery Weekend for our Fall Fellowship. This weekend long mystery was the largest in lodge history with 338 members attending.
At the annual National Planning Meeting in December, our lodge encountered another first. Clay Capp went to this meeting as the SR-6A Section Chief but left being elected by his fellow Section Chiefs as the National Chief of the Order of the Arrow. Clay is the first Arrowman to be elected from our lodge to this position of prominence. This was even more important as Clay would be serving as National Chief at a National Order of the Arrow Conference. Not only did this put Clay in the spot light but also our lodge. The 2002 NOAC, was a very special one for our lodge. There is a difference when you attend a NOAC and the National Chief is from your lodge. Not only did we have Clay serving as the National chief but we also saw Mr. Carl Head presented the Order’s Distinguished Service Award. Our lodge also won the national lip sync competition. This team of the Soggy Bottom Boys dressed up and did a scene from the hit motion picture, O Brother, Where Art Thou?