Hankins Tales: Remembering David Estes

(Originally posted to social media on January 8, 2024)

I know how it works. When you are 18 your focus is on graduation and all of your future plans. By the time you are about 28 all of your friends are getting married and it is one big endless celebration. In your 40s you are raising kids and getting ahead in the job that almost consumes you. Eventually you retire and somehow you have turned 70 and your peers and coworkers and friends begin to die. Normally it is just one or two over a long stretch of time but lately I feel like I am caught in an avalanche of death. In recent weeks I have lost some really close friends or relatives and it is almost overwhelming. I have still not worked up the strength to address the passing of David Estes.

And now my messenger is lit up with people letting me know that John Slaughter has died. John was only about 2 years older than I am but he was a good friend. We had a very relaxed and easygoing relationship. We used to laugh a lot and he had a spectacular sense of humor. As an electrician he brought an important skill set out to camp when he showed up for ordeals. He was always there and he was dependable and self reliant. If I gave a job to Slaughter I knew it would be done and done right. He always called me “John-Boy” and he was not shy about making fun of me if I made a mistake.

He was a hoot at Conclaves and he always liked to help me carve the venison that I would cook for that event. I would cook about ten deer and I needed people to slice and dice that meat. I would get the whole crowd fired up and excited and John would be right in the thick of it. At the end of that feast he would be the first to pitch in to help cleanup.

I remember at a Conclave at Rock Enon one year I was telling a story and I was talking to a thousand people in a big field. And my son Harrison called me on my cell phone. We had a very funny exchange and then i went back to the story. A little while later he called back. John Slaughter was the one who was pushing him to call me. I will miss John on a number of levels. I do not have very many close friends in the real world but John certainly qualified. I cannot imagine going back to camp for a big event and not hearing him. His voice echos in my mind even now. I need things to slow down a little. Dealing with all of this cumulative loss is overwhelming, it is too much to bear…..

With permission of the author, these stories by noted scouter and storyteller John Hankins are featured here at Natahwop.Org. He shares these as part of the history and lore of Camp Powhatan, Camp Ottari, and the High Knoll Trail, where he spent many years of his youth. John has an incomperable first-hand knowledge of this scout reservation, as he blazed most of the original trails for High Knoll, and has hiked the rest of them several times over.

John Hankins grew up in Troop 50 (Woodlawn United Methodist Church) in Roanoke, VA. He attended Camp Powhatan as a young scout, then worked at Philmont Ranch as a ranger. He returned to the reservation to serve on camp staff from 1968 to 1978. He was a legendary naturalist who could interpret the outdoors unlike any other. As a teacher, John often relied on the element of excitement to get his point across. His weekly lectures at the nature lodge, for example, introduced scouts to either a live rattlesnake or copperhead – usually dangling on a stick within a few feet of the front row.

John and several others first envisioned the now-legendary High Knoll trail system. They took it to council leadership for prospective funding, where the idea gained several key advocates (but no funding). John recalls how – in those days – they couldn’t pay the staff with money, so they gave them patches. The High Knoll Trail would go on to become one of the best outdoor programs in the country.

John applied in 1979 for the open job of Camp Ranger, but the council said he needed more experience in that post. With his rejection letter in hand, he was immediately hired by Camp Chickohominy, and then by Camp Brady Saunders where he served for 33 years as Camp Ranger. John moved with his wife, Cheri, to West Virginia where they enjoyed the spoils of retirement: grandchildren, travel, and the great outdoors. As of 2024, they are living on the outskirts of Richmond where they can be closer to family.

(“Hankins Tales” are shared here by permission of the author. Each story is copyrighted by John Hankins, and may not be reproduced in any form without his express written permission.)

The Natahwop

Hankins Tales: Remembering David Estes

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