1998 NOAC
.jpg)
This year there were 25 Catawba Lodge members in our contingent
to the 1998 NOAC (National Order of the Arrow Conference) in Ames,
Iowa. The attendance was 6,061 scouts and 1,100 staff.
It was great. For those of you that do not know about NOAC, it
is four days of patch trading, meeting new and interesting arrowmen,
workshops, and shows. It is a time for you to grow in scouting
and to get to know your fellow arrowmen better.
We left from the scout office in Charlotte, NC on Saturday August
1st around 10 AM. To save money we rode in a bus with
Klahikan Lodge (another of our fellow lodges here in North
Carolina). The bus ride to Ames, Iowa was going to be non-stop
(except for eating and rest stops) all the way there, the travel
time was about 24 hours.
|
.jpg) |
There were
about 40 of us in that 52 passenger bus. So it was not as
cramped as I thought it was going to be for our long journey to
Aimes, Iowa. During the bus ride we socialized among our
lodges and talked about a lot of things and learned a lot of
things dealing with Klahikan Lodge. Many of us made new
friends with them. We also watched many movies such
as Mission Impossible, Austin Powers, and Dances With Wolves.
Some people read a book, played cards, or listened to a CD
player. |
|
.jpg) |
While
traveling to Aimes we got to see a lot of the country many of us
have never seen before. For example we got to see the
Mississippi River. That was a first for me. We also
got to see what the main crop was for that part of the country,
if you do not know what it is ask any of us and we will surly be
able to tell you because we saw miles and miles and rows and
rows of this stuff. |
Once we arrived at Iowa State University the fun began.
There were many things going on for the four days we were at NOAC.
To list a few there were bowling (which I discovered our lodge chief
and his father are pretty good at), basketball, billiards, a COPE
like activity, swimming, volleyball, American Indian Workshops,
Ceremonial Workshops, patch trading, shows (in the arena with it
full of scouts, you have never seen anything like that), training,
meeting important individuals in the OA and in scouting, patch
trading, OA museums, OA Jeopardy, lip sync contests, ohh and patch
trading (have I mentioned that yet?) just to name a few of the
things going on at NOAC. Basically there were stuff for you to
do every day and you could not possibly see and do everything.
During the day we went to training sessions to learn about
different things to better ourselves and our lodges, but every night
there was a show to go to. Each show was unique and
interesting in their own special way. One unique and fun thing
about. the shows was having over 6,000 scouts in the OA in one place
at the same time. It was crazy what some of the lodges would
do.
|
.jpg)
.jpg) |
During the
shows we were introduced to the National Chief (Matt Milleson)
and the National Vice-Chief (David Petrush). Some shows
even had special presentations like the DSA (Distinguished
Service Award), one recipient of that was our former SR-7 Chief
Bud Harrelson. The last show was the best though, it had a
play in it called "The Admonition", this was a very thought
provoking production that was just awesome. After the play
was over as a final fare well until 2000 there was a fireworks
and laser show inside the arena. |
Overall NOAC was a very positive experience. All those who
went seemed to enjoy themselves. The Bus ride was long, but we
had fun and it was well worth the long ride for such a great time
Trey Courtney
Catawba Lodge 459
1998 NOAC Chairman
|
