TROOP 89
MEDFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS

March, 2000

 Dear New Troop 89 Scout and Parent:

Welcome to Troop 89, Medfield, and to the Boy Scouts of America!  As a new member of Troop 89 you are joining a worldwide movement which has served over 250 million youth in over 117 nations for over ninety-three years.  Lord Robert S. Baden-Powell, a British General and war hero, founded the Boy Scouts in England in 1907 based on a book he wrote titled, Scouting for Boys.

Two years later, an American newspaper publisher named William Boyce found himself hopelessly lost in a thick London fog.  A boy appeared suddenly and offered to help him locate his destination.  Upon arriving, Mr. Boyce offered to pay the young man for his assistance.  The youth refused the payment, claiming that he was one of Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts and was merely doing a good deed.  Astonished, Mr. Boyce visited General Baden-Powell the very next day.  He learned all he could about the Boy Scout program before returning to the United States.  The Boy Scouts of America was chartered by the United States Congress the following year on 8 February 1910. 

Forty-nine years later, in 1959, Boy Scout Troop 89 was incorporated in the town of Medfield, Massachusetts.  Since then, Troop 89 has served hundreds of Medfield youth, including forty-nine who reached the highest rank of Eagle Scout.

As a Boy Scout, you will learn how to camp, how to use sharp tools safely, and how to build things with only logs and rope; you will learn how to administer first aid to others, how to find your way in the wilderness, and how cook on an outdoor fire.  You will learn more about your community, your country, and yourself.

As a Troop 89 Scout, you will learn about a race called the Apache Relay, about a wood box called One Dead Cow, about a place called Camp Child, and a place called Camp Squanto.  You will learn about a group called the Order of the Arrow and a lodge called Tisquantum.  Whenever you hear a song titled, The Three Sunrises, you will think about skiing, no matter where you are or at what time of year it is.  You will find out what it is like to bike on Cape Cod, climb mountains in New Hampshire, raft a river in Maine, and compete with other Scouts in Vermont.

As a Scout, you will learn that a Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.  With these twelve principles, called the Scout Law, you will take an oath declaring, on your honor, to do your best to do your duty to God and your country, to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, and to keep yourself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.  You will learn to be prepared and to do a good turn daily.  You will learn how to be a better citizen and a better person.

The rank of Eagle, the highest rank of Scouting, is ultimately within the reach of each of you.  Only a lack of determination, commitment, and hard work can keep you from reaching this achievement.  As a Troop 89 Eagle Scout myself, I challenge you to do your best to achieve this outstanding goal.  Welcome, good luck, and good Scouting!

Yours in Scouting,
John J. Merck III
Troop 89 Eagle Scout
Class of 1986