The Natahwop

The Online Journal of Blue Ridge Scouting History, Inc.

The Blue Ridge Scouting History Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit in Roanoke, VA.
Our mission is to collect, preserve, and present the history of Boy Scouting and Scouting America in Central and Southwestern Virginia.

Hankins Tales: My First Camporee

(Originally posted to social media on November 22, 2022)

In the early 1960s when I first became a Boy Scout I went to my first District Camporee. I do not recall what time of year it was but it was cold. I don’t think that I ever went on one Scout campout that was not cold. This event took place up at Altamons in the high mountains along the Roanoke River, just past Shawsville. I have a collection of thousands of old scout patches and somewhere in the mix is a simple round black and white patch from that event. I wore it on my scout shirt for years.

In those days troop 50 was in the Rawenoke District. I think I am spelling that wrong but it was an abberation on the word Roanoke. I think that it is now called the Big Lick District. I had been on a number of troop camping trips, each of which conspired to kill me graveyard dead. But suddenly I found myself standing in a vast army of humanity spread along the right hand side of the road up to the falls. It was the first time that I got a glimpse of the fact that the Boy Scouts were a national organization. Much bigger than my pitiful patrol or my troop. We arrived on a Friday night and quickly found ourselves setting up in the dark. There was very little guidance or organization. We simply had to stay within lines that had been laid out by a deranged district executive.

We woke up in the morning to the standard boy scout greeting, “Get some damn wood!” All around us fires began to rise up like ghosts in the fog. Meals began to cook and the air was filled with the smell of burning bacon. At some point one of the young boys in an adjacent campsite cut off his thumb with a very sharp boy scout hatchet. His screams will live forever in my twisted mind as he began to run all over the valley, blood just flying up in the air. He was followed by a rapidly growing army of scouts who wanted to try some real first aid. I am pretty sure that his thumb was lost in the stampede. Off in the distance we could hear the siren approaching that would haul the child away forever. His hitch hiking days were over.

That night we had some sort of a campfire in the open field. Songs were sung and tired boys began to drift back to another cold night. The next morning my troop took a hike up to the falls on the mountain. It was to become one of my favorite spots. It is still unclear to me how I survived all those years as a scout. Almost every thing that we did was a potentially deadly activity. Every meal we ate was death on a stick. But I loved it and I would not change a minute of it. I was just lucky I guess…..

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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.)

Hankins Tales: My First Camporee

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