Pow Wow '06

This past weekend was the first-ever Sectional Pow Wow for the northeastern part of Kansas. For those of you that might not know what a "Pow Wow" is (other than something out of a poorly written TV western) - it is a Royal Rangers campout for multiple outposts to get together, have council fire services and play ranger games. We typically have a statewide district Pow Wow, but it was canceled to allow more folks to attend this year's International Camporama.

Having a sectional event means that more of the boys are likely to meet/play with other guys from their area .... and even better - we didn't have to drive as far.

The Royal Ranger motto: "Ready" was appropriate this weekend as we had a few challenges to overcome. Packing those extra tents came in handy when 2 of the only-used-once tents were wet and moldy out of the bag and couldn't be used. Packing for weather eventualities was also critical since we got rain off and on all Friday night and sporadically through Saturday.

Once the tents were all set up, we got down to the important part - food. This Pow Wow was different from most in that each outpost had to cook their own meals. It was a great excuse for our outpost to buy 2 new stoves, a lantern and a propane tree. Not having to wait for a fire to get going on Saturday morning made breakfast a lot easier. The boys entered our breakfast (Sausage, Eggs, Peppers, Cheese and a Biscuit - with orange juice) into the Iron Skillet competition. Once our submission was in, I got asked to judge. I was happy to suffer through portions of a yummy ham-n-spinach omelet, strawberry French toast, and other less creative items like pop tarts. I got more than my share of breakfast, and our guys won 3rd place .... darn strawberry French toast.

When the boys were mixed into teams for the activities, our outpost hosted a rather fun tug of war game. Two patrols of 8 boys competed at a time starting with all 8 on each side of the rope .... when a patrol won they had to vote out a member of their own team. Notice that I didn't say that the loser lost a player - but the winner. This was neat because some of the teams won so much that they ended up pulling 4 guys against a losing team of 8. The first team to be eliminated won. To get a full picture of what this was like, remember that had been raining all night. Mud Masque Anyone?

Our Council Fire service was really neat. It's amazing how engaged boys can be when someone dressed in full Indian costume shares a devotion by fire light. I think most of the commanders were also wondering if his ankle-length headdress was going to catch some of the sparks that kept popping up from the fire. The praise and worship time (at a meeting shelter 1/2 mile down the path) was fun too. A youth/garage band of former and current Rangers played their electric guitars and yarled into the mic. The boys thought this was a great improvement over our last Pow Wow that featured a video screen in the middle of a field playing vbs songs after the sing along guy canceled.

The neatest part of it all though was that C-man got to go with me. Ranger Kids (K-2) can't go to camping events without a dad and usually aren't able to attend Pow Wows ... but the lower profile nature of a sectional event meant that I was able to bring him along. There were 7 other RKs there, but C-man spent most of his time with the bigger 3rd and 4th graders and seems to have held his own pretty well. He was very dirty by the time he got home, but looking forward to next year when he can go to all of the events.