Hankins Tales: Remembering Joe Larocco

(Originally posted to social media on January 19, 2021)

My old friend Tom Keeley has posted that he just learned of the death of Joe Larocco. I have not had the chance to verify this information but I have a bad feeling that it is true. There are a number of Staff pictures from Camp Powhatan where I am standing somewhere in the back. I was so tall that I was always placed on the back row. Somewhere up in the middle ranks of that photo was a slight and serious-looking young staffer named Joe.

He was a year younger than I was but we were friends. We never had a fistfight or hit each other with iron pipes. I do not remember ever having any disagreement with Joe. If I remember right he was a camp commissioner in those days. He also eventually became a district executive in the Roanoke area. I remember him being one of the most honest people I had ever encountered. It was like he was trying to actually live and follow the scout oath and law. I had given up on that goal many years ago.

I found it hard to get past Trustworthy. As I reflect back over the last few years these old staffers have fallen like a line of soldiers in the civil war. You never knew when a Minnie ball had your name on it. The death of any of these guys equals the loss of a lifetime of memories and experience. I think that is one of the main reasons that I started sharing stories on Facebook. Otherwise, those stories would have just passed away when that bullet found me. I will be interested to see the details of what happened to Joe.

I am pretty sure we are friends on Facebook but I do not spend a lot of time taking inventory to see who is paying attention. I do not know if he was married with six kids or where he was living at the time of his passing. All I know is that it is one more gone, in a year where death has become far too commonplace.

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 Joe Larocco

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