The Scout lodge was dedicated and consecrated on April 12, 2008. The ceremony capped 20 years of fundraising and planning by the scouts, scoutmasters, leaders and local friends of scouting. While First Methodist Church of Athens provided the site, the scouts and leaders raised all the funding to build the facility. The boys (and their leaders and parents) are still actively working at improving the site with landscaping, storage facility, and signs.
Our thanks to these Friends of Troop 343
Athens Daily Review Story
Published: April 11, 2008 07:31 pm
80-year dream becoming reality for Athens Boy Scouts
Local troop getting ready to unveil lodge at First United Methodist Church
By Lauren Ricks
“Be prepared” is the well-known motto of Boy Scouts. Athens’ own Troop 343 has followed that motto diligently since the 1980s, patiently waiting 20 years for a meeting place of its own. Mission accomplished.
The new Scout Lodge — built by Red Dot — is 3,500 square feet and cost $121,303 to build. It took the troop two years to complete the building. Scouts began using the lodge in February, but it will officially be dedicated on Saturday. The lodge is located on the grounds of the First United Methodist Church of Athens.
“It’s a place they can call their own,” said Thomas Faulk, who has been with the troop for more than 20 years and works with the First United Methodist Church as liaison. He is also the troop’s treasurer. “I’m excited. It’s been 20 years coming.”
Greg Ryan, , scoutmaster of the troop for the past five years, said the troop has met in the Old Methodist Church, Texas Armory, Henderson County Junior College (now Trinity Valley Community College) and at the Cain Center. In 1964 it moved to Athens’ First United Methodist Church.
The lodge allows the troop to meet in one room and gives them space to grow, Faulk said. “The scouts can grow and kids can have fun, they don’t have to worry about what they do,” Faulk said.
He said Boy Scouts previously shared space with the Cub Scouts, and time was lost to setup and clean-up.
Scouts raised $53,633 over the last 20 years to make the lodge a reality. How did they raise the money? “Selling a lot of Christmas trees and cakes,” Faulk said. The remainder of the cost was provided by donations to the troop. “The county has a lot of wonderful people that helped us get this done,” Faulk said.
Faulk said a total of $67,670 was donated through products sold at cost, donated materials and labor.
“I was really heart struck over what people did,” Faulk said. He said three organizations contributed nearly 25 percent of the needed funds.
Lebeau and Associates donated all the cabinet work, shelves and bookcases. “It would have been an empty shell without them,” Faulk said.
According to Faulk, The Ginger Murchison Foundation donated funds at a crucial time. “We were out of cash when they came through,” Faulk said, “It got the ball rolling again.”
Air Services, owned by Michael Houston, provided all the electrical, air conditioning and heating, and all the duct work at a “nominal cost.” “We wouldn’t have the quality of building that we have without them,” Faulk said.
The troop is asking that anyone that has memorabilia to bring it to be displayed in the lodge.
“We are hoping now that we have this home, the items will come home,” said Ryan.
Ryan said the troop is run by the scouts. He compared himself to a driving instructor. “They are in control but my foot is right next to the brake,” he said.
The troop was organized in February 1928 as Scout Troop 2. It was later chartered as Troop 343.
Ryan said in the past 80 years, the troop has had 74 members reach the rank of Eagle — the highest rank a Boy Scout can attain. The first member of the troop to reach this rank was D.B. Pierce, in March 1930. He died in January 2007, a month before the troop began holding meetings in the lodge.
An open house will be held at 5:30 p.m. at the lodge (225 Lovers Lane, Building B, Athens). The dedication consecration will be held at 5:50 p.m., with dinner to follow at 6 p.m.
