Event to focus on historical merit badges

Staff report

CANFIELD

The Greater Western Reserve Council will have historical-merit-badge exercises Saturday at Camp Stambaugh, 3712 Leffing-well Road.

The event is intended to give Boy Scouts an opportunity to work on four discontinued merit badges brought back as part of the Boy Scouts of America’s celebration of 100 years of Scouting.

The badges – carpentry, pathfinding, signaling, and tracking – must be completed between April 1 and Dec. 31.

Pathfinder and tracking will be from 8 a.m. to noon and signaling and carpentry will be from 1 to 5 p.m.

The badges were introduced between 1910 and 1911. Carpentry, pathfinding and tracking were discontinued in 1952 and signaling in 1992.

In addition to completing the same requirements Scouts did a century ago, today’s Scouts will learn what their counterpart in 1910 might have experienced.

For more information about the 2010 Historical Merit Badge program, including requirements, go to www.scouting.org/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/MeritBadges.aspx