Hankins Tales: Remembering Larry Adkins

(Originally posted to social media on May 5, 2023)

I am shocked to hear about the death of Larry Adkins. Larry and I have been friends for more than 50 years. However we have lost track in the last 5 or so. I understand he has had some serious health issues. I fully expected to see him at the recent Conclave. He liked to wear the old red scout jacket that so many of us wore. His hair was black and he had a ready smile for anyone that he knew. He was full of lies and stories and memories and maybe that is why we got along so well. I do not know how old Larry was but I think we were about the same age.

Many years ago during the first season of the High Knoll Trail Camp Larry led a crew out of Camp Ottari. It was the first day on the trail and they were hiking out across the North Ridge trail that led up to the peak of High Knoll Mountain. His crew was headed into my base camp at white Oak Creek, Logging Days. After a while I began to get worried about the crew. I radioed base to find out if they left in time. Larry was supposed to have taken a trail off the right side of the mountain that would bring him down to me. But he had taken this steep shortcut trail that I had cut just for my own use. It was barely marked and it was so steep that it was almost cliff like. It dumped into a vast Rhododendron thicket that sprawled across the vast flow of White Oak Flats.

At the bottom the trail vanished because I did not need to know where I was going. I had a bad feeling that Larry and those poor kids were stranded in that snake infested hell. I got in my truck and rode to the closest point to the bottom of the trail and I cut loose with a long scream. Almost right away I heard the sounds of a crew lost on High Knoll. They would not be the last. I ran cross country to where they were still screaming. I led them out and I have to admit that I laughed just a little bit. Larry took it in stride but the kids were about to die.

Back at my camp I let the base know that I had the crew and then I ran them through the whole program. I let them know that they were trailblazers in a new program. The next day I sent them on the way to Huff Farm. They all thanked me for a great time and for getting them out of that patch of ground. The other option would have been to climb back up that mountain and that was almost unthinkable. Larry will be missed. He had a tall, lanky frame and he seemed to be everywhere at once in the old days. Tonight he is breaking in some new trail, swift travels my friend.

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 Larry Adkins

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