Frustrated by dismissive patrons outside his local grocery store in South Dakota, John Grant, a Lion Cub Scout, changed his selling strategy midsale. Without consultation, he proposed that a portion of his pack’s popcorn sales would go toward adding a top hat to Abraham Lincoln’s sculpture at Mount Rushmore.
“My history book shows him with a big hat,” John says. “We had been to Mount Rushmore as a family, and he never looked right to me.”
Customers loved the idea and soon began buying boxes upon boxes of popcorn. When the pack returned to the store the next weekend for another sales day, a line quickly formed to support the cause.
“We thought it was cute at first but realized that it wouldn’t be Scout-like to not fulfill the promise,” says Amanda Hill, a Wolf den leader for Pack 314. “We were already in it too deep.”
That started an endeavor the pack hopes will come to fruition this summer, just in time for America’s 250th birthday festivities on the Fourth of July. But these ambitious Cub Scouts knew they needed help.
Hat builders
Though funds poured in for a monumental sum of $150,000, pack leaders realized it wouldn’t be enough to hire an artist to chisel a 35-foot-tall hat out of granite. So they began brainstorming alternatives. That’s when their older compatriots came to the rescue.
Because every Scout in Troop 314 had recently earned the Sculpture merit badge, senior patrol leader Andrew Garrapolo came up with a plan to help the pack. The troop hit up area high schools and colleges to request any extra modeling clay they might have. The pack also used some of its money to buy clay. Then the Scouts turned their Scoutmaster’s backyard into an enormous outdoor studio.
“I think we got enough clay to make a hat that’s tall enough,” Andrew says. “Each patrol made a portion, but when we put it all together, it kept leaning.”
Like using toothpicks in a layered cake, the troop’s quartermaster suggested shaping the clay around some Scout pioneering spars. It worked — for the most part.
“Some parts kept trying to slide off, but that’s why we have first-year Scouts to stand there and hold it in place,” Andrew says.
Armed with hair dryers, the older Scouts and adults worked around the younger Scouts to dry the clay.
“This better count for my service hours,” Tenderfoot Scout Miles Armstrong could be heard repeatedly saying.
The big problem
After the hat had hardened, the troop was left with a challenge: transporting the hat to Mount Rushmore.
“We don’t know how to get it there,” says assistant senior patrol leader Ralph Duncan. “We also don’t know how to get it up on Abe’s head.”
And there’s some urgency in the matter.
“Our Scoutmaster wants it out of his yard now,” Andrew says. “I’m sure all the grass back there is dead.”
Enthusiastic Cub Scouts from Pack 314 have offered solutions.
“My sister earned the Aviation merit badge, so I’m sure she can pull it up there with a helicopter,” says Tiger Cub Scout Rosalyn Fuller.
Scouting America’s health and safety team wants to reiterate that while youth operating helicopters to hoist a massive amount of clay isn’t specifically mentioned on the list of prohibited activities, that doesn’t mean units should try it.
“I read in my history book that the ancient Egyptians used sleds and ramps to build the pyramids. That might work,” Webelos Scout Alice Sanderson says. “My dad said it was aliens, though.”
Scouters who would like to help brainstorm ideas can reach out to the units, but Pack 314 Cubmaster John Hetherington says the project potentially faces a bigger challenge.
Last week, he received a call from John Wilkes, an official from the governmental Office of Disapprovers, Rejecters and Sourpusses, who threatened to put an end to the project.
“If someone out there can talk some sense into him, we’d appreciate it,” Hetherington says.
