New Book Takes Readers Back to Gilwell

As a seasonal staff member at Philmont Scout Ranch in the early 1960s, Eagle Scout Kenneth P. Davis learned how to spot the people most responsible for Scouting’s success. “It was clear that everybody who’d ever done very much in Scouting as an adult was wearing Wood Badge beads,” he recalls. “So I figured, even though I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into, I would try to go.”

That’s exactly what he did in August 1963. He was 21 years old and just starting a lifelong involvement with Scouting’s premier training course. In fact, he has since served on at least 35 Wood Badge staffs—including several as course director—and is part of the task force developing the latest version of the training. (Scheduled for release later this year, it will be the fourth major version of Wood Badge.) “I’ve actually served on staff for every version of the course, and there aren’t many people like me around,” he says. “It’s partly because I went when I was so young and stayed involved.”

Davis’ experience, coupled with his two college degrees in history, made him the perfect person to write The History of Wood Badge in the United States, which is now available for purchase from Seattle Book Company. And if that weren’t enough, Davis, who donated his time, actually wrote a previous version of the book three decades ago. (That book got its start in 1976, when someone at a Wood Badge course gave him a mimeographed copy of a paper on early Wood Badge history.)

In the new book’s introduction, Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh echoes what Davis discovered about Wood Badge back in the 1960s. “Wood Badge has long been a powerful force for learning, inspiration, and motivation for hundreds of thousands of Scout leaders throughout the world,” he says. “Wherever you go in Scouting, you find top leaders wearing Wood Badge beads.”

So what is Wood Badge and why is it so magical? The program began in England in 1919, when 20 British Scout leaders came together at Gilwell Park near London for a new course devised by Scouting founder Robert Baden-Powell. For the next 11 days, they learned and practiced all the skills they would need to teach their Scouts—everything from fire-building to signaling to tree identification. “They weren’t sitting in a classroom, taking

notes, and taking a test at the end of it,” Davis says. “They were practicing stuff that would be helpful to them back in their units.”

But the real magic of Wood Badge was that the participants operated as a model troop, which gave them a Scout’s-eye view of the program. That essential element remains, even as the course’s content has shifted from Scoutcraft skills to leadership development, and as participation has broadened to include Cub Scout and Venturing leaders. “I think all of our courses have been true to what Baden-Powell wanted to do, which was for Scouters to live like Scouts,” Davis says. “I can tell you with personal certainty that each one of these courses has been an extraordinarily good leadership course.”

Along the way, of course, much has changed in Scouting and the world around it. Most people today take Wood Badge over two long weekends, and modern technology plays a role in the delivery of the newer version. Reflecting America’s growing diversity, courses are now offered in Spanish, Vietnamese, and even American Sign Language. There have been intriguing variations as well over the years, including Cub Scout Trainer Wood Badge, experimental courses using rafts and canoes, and “walking” Wood Badge courses at Philmont.

In his book, Davis traces how Wood Badge has changed over the past 100 years, but he never forgets that Wood Badge for all its mystique and traditions has a higher purpose. “You do Wood Badge right, and you’re improving what happens in kids’ lives,” he says.