THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603250084
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY JEFF HAMPTON, CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
Virgie Brown, a mother of seven and grandmother of several more, spent a recent day out at the woodpile - showing a bunch of Boy Scouts how to sharpen and use an ax.
The boys were assigned to clear brush and roots from their camping area, and the 63-year-old Brown wanted to make sure they did it right.
That's her way.
A troop committee chairman and fill-in assistant scoutmaster, Brown has been a leader in the Boy Scouts of America for nearly 40 years. She likes to see boys learn how to do things right.
Brown is older - and more skilled in the outdoors - than most of the men still camping in the Boy Scouts' Albemarle District. She is excellent in campfire cooking, fishing, map and compass, leather work and first aid.
Brown carves her own hiking sticks and neckerchief slides. In her back yard sits a pit for campfires, where she often cooks dinner for her family. And she is always in uniform on scouting activities - to set an example, she says.
``A boy acts better in a uniform,'' said Brown, her clear blue eyes peering from behind her glasses. ``A young man puts on that uniform, and it changes him.''
Brown still remembers growing up near a Boy Scout who lived in her Elizabeth City neighborhood.
``When I was about 13 or 14 years old, there was a family next door with five boys, all of them named after airplanes,'' she said. ``The most handsome was Mono Fox. When he came out of their home wearing his Scout uniform, he was the best-lookingboy I'd ever seen.''
As committee chairman for Troop 175, sponsored by the Elizabeth City Ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Brown is the organizer behind the scenes.
Scoutmaster Glen Boykin says the troop simply could not function without Brown, who is always happy to respond to Boykin's requests for help.
``Scouting slowly creeps up on you,'' said Brown, whose energy level seems that of someone 20 years younger. ``It becomes a way of life.''
``She is excellent,'' said Julian Copeland, the Albemarle District chairman for the Boy Scouts of America. ``She was the first woman in our area to be tapped out for the Order of the Arrow.''
The order is an honor group for extra-dedicated Scouts. Brown also received the Silver Beaver award last year, one of the top awards scouting gives to its adult leaders. And she has served as training director for other district Scout leaders.
From her first involvement in scouting as a den mother in 1963, Brown has taken every opportunity for training, including the coveted Wood Badge, an extensive course in outdoors skills and leadership.
It was Brown's intensity and Scout training that sort of got her into trouble once.
She was at a show watching a fire demonstration. An experienced Scout set the wood on fire, but stood so close that his pants caught fire.
Brown immediately jumped the restraining rope and tackled the Scout away from the fire.
To her surprise, the disgruntled Scout yelled ``Please, lady, this is a demonstration!''
He had been wearing asbestos under his pants leg. Another Scout was supposed to put out the fire and administer first aid. But Brown was too quick for them.
``I had had some good first aid training then, and I was going to put it to use,'' she quipped.
All of Brown's five sons have been Scouts, and three reached the highest rank of Eagle. Brown believes the only way boys do their best in scouting is with parental support.
Her oldest son, Rick, was only 13 when he saved his little brother's life about two decades ago with the first aid skills he learned in scouting.
Brown had briefly left her children at home one day to go to the store. When she returned, no one was home, and she found blood splattered all over the walls of the upstairs bedroom.
Her first-aid experience told her somebody's artery had been cut. So she rushed to the emergency room, where she found her children and their grandmother. Two of Rick's younger brothers had been jumping and wrestling on the bed, they explained, and a glass box of knickknacks shattered in the fray. A shard of glass pierced an artery under one boy's arm.
Rick had heard screams and rushed upstairs, where he quickly pulled the glass from his brother's arm and stuffed cloth diapers against the wound. He told his brother to hold his arm down tightly to apply pressure.
He then called his grandmother, who lived nearby. In a few minutes, she was driving all the kids to the hospital.
``My son James is alive today because his brother had been well trained in first aid,'' Brown said. ``The doctor told my mother that if Rick had not done what he did, James would have died.''
The family had recently moved back to Elizabeth City from Texas. After the incident, Brown wrote a letter of thanks to Rick's former Scout leader - who never thought she had much effect on the 11-year-old boys she taught.
Scouting is not as popular as it was 20 or 30 years ago, but Brown says her son's actions show how important it can be.
``I feel scouting is even more valuable today to our young men, because they are being hit by so many bad things,'' Brown said. ``Scouting is one way parents have to make sure their son is getting a good thing.
``The Scout leaders I've associated with are outstanding leaders, the majority of them, and they are there for the boys.''
Just like Virgie Brown. ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo by JEFF HAMILTON
Virgie Brown, 63, delights in turning boys into young men through
scouting. She is older - and more skilled in the outdoors - than
most of the men camping in the Boy Scouts' Albemarle District.
by CNB