About the Centre Hall Community
As recounted by Donny Foust of Centre Hall - personally committed to Boy Scouting for 70 years!
In about 1914, a small Boy Scout troop was formed in Centre Hall, Pennsylvania.
Known as Troop 2, it lasted until its numbers became too small due to the
economic hardships of the Great Depression. In 1936, leaders of the Centre
Hall Lions Club saw a need for scouting in the community and organized a new
Troop. The Lions Club was the first Charter organization for the
reorganized Boy Scout “Troop 20”, which had a few more than a dozen boys and
Benny Wagner as its first scoutmaster. Centre Hall resident Donnie Foust,
a 16 year old, became a scout in the newly formed Troop 20 in 1936 and he
continues to serve the Troop today as its chartering organization
representative. St. Luke Evangelical Church became Troop 20’s
chartering organization in the 1950s.
Always
adhering to the values and teachings of scouting, Troop 20 took on the task of
helping the victims of the 1936 Lewistown flood. They delivered eggs and
milk to folks in Lewistown to help them through their tough times.
Another Troop 20 project was the creation of the Cleveland Trail. Named in honor of the airmail pilot who had crashed on top of Nittany Mountain in 1931, the trail followed a logging road. The scouts cleared small brush along the trail that leads to a small monument commemorating Cleveland’s life. To this day, Troop 20 maintains the Cleveland Trail, making it accessible to hikers.
Troop 20 charter member Donnie Foust remembers when in the 1970s there was a reform movement in the Boy Scouts of America to urbanize scouting. This essentially eliminated many of the outdoor activities such as camping and hiking that Troop 20 used as its core for building young men of character and old-fashioned know-how. Eventually, however, the BSA, Donnie explained, “saw that it didn’t work, so they came back to the old scouting ways.”
Through the years, there have been several scoutmasters. In the 1940s, Bob Rhoades was the scoutmaster; his name is the first on the Troop 20 Eagle Board. Donnie Foust served as scoutmaster from 1967-1972 and continues his relationship with the troop as committee member. There were 54 boys in the troop at this time. Donnie was followed by Reeder Sharer, Ronald Grove, Van Jodon, Daryl Doty, Eric Myer , Richard Hedden.and today's Scoutmaster, Jeff Ayers.