Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 30, 1995                   TAG: 9505300121
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BEDFORD                                LENGTH: Medium

GUARD HALTS GIRL SCOUT CEREMONY

Members of Girl Scout Troop 266 and their parents traveled to Washington from Bedford a few weeks ago to commemorate their graduation to the next level of scouting. They planned to recite the pledge, a poem about the American flag and the Girl Scout Promise.

But the rite was interrupted by a National Park Service guard who said the girls were holding a demonstration without a permit, a violation of federal law, troop leader Dorothy Narodny said.

After a talk with the girls' parents, the guard eventually relented.

But, Narodny said, it was then too late to restart the ceremony, and the girls had to return home without completing it.

So, Narodny wrote a letter to her congressman, Rep. L.F. Payne, D-Nelson County.

``You can imagine my consternation and dismay and the confusion and distress that ensued among the girls and their families,'' Narodny wrote.

Payne in turn wrote an angry letter to Roger G. Kennedy, director of the National Park Service.

``In short, it is difficult for me to understand how or why a park ranger would enforce a regulation on unauthorized demonstrations when the `demonstration' in question involves half a dozen Girl Scouts gathering in the shadows of the Jefferson Memorial to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and a poem on citizenship,'' Payne wrote.

``Surely, the park police must have better things to do than to disband a small group of children under these circumstances.''

As of Friday, the congressman had received no reply from the park service, a Payne spokesman said. A message left at the park service was not immediately returned Monday. The office was closed for Memorial Day.