THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 26, 1997 TAG: 9701260061
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 65 lines
Sometimes, roughing it is overrated.
Boy Scouts are supposed to be prepared for anything when they go camping. But that does not mean they enjoy being drenched with rain and mud during an overnight campout.
Thanks to a donation from the Associated General Contractors of Virginia, Scouts soon will have shelter from the elements at Camp Baker, a 2,000-acre campground on Centerville Parkway in Chesapeake.
The contractors began construction last week on a 324-square-foot activity shelter and latrine. More than 20 businesses and civic groups have contributed to the $20,000 project, said Terry Ingham, state director of the contractors association. The project should be finished by the end of February.
Without a weather shelter, only 50 Scouts can use the campsite each month, said Beryl Love, executive director of Tidewater Council, Boy Scouts of America, which serves southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. The new structure will make the campground accessible to triple that number, mostly younger children not old enough to pitch a tent on their own.
The activity center also will provide a classroom for lessons about wildlife and crafts.
Hampton Roads is home to 300 Scouting groups with 20,000 members, Love said.
The Boy Scouts have leased Camp Baker from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for three years, Ingham said. For 15 years before that, the campground was off-limits because its trees had been clear cut. The Corps closed the camp to allow the foliage and wildlife time to grow back.
Camp Baker remains an ecologically sensitive wetland, however, Ingham said.
Although Ingham expects to complete the activity center in only a few weeks, it has taken him three years to obtain permission to build on the site.
Before breaking ground, the contractors association had to receive approval from more than a dozen local, state and federal agencies, including the Chesapeake Health Department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.
Many Scouts say the new activity center will make camping a bit more comfortable.
``The times when you want to use a latrine, you really miss it,'' said Aaron Tate, 15, a member of Virginia Beach's Troop 401, sponsored by the Princess Anne Ruritan Club and Brigadoon Civic League.
Others say they prefer to leave nature untouched.
``Myself, I'd just as soon they leave it alone. I like the rustic approach,'' said Steve Ingwersen, assistant Scoutmaster of Troop 401.
But Camp Baker is hardly the wilderness, Ingwersen said. ``You can hear the cars from the road at night.''
Camp Baker also is littered with trash from neighboring roads and development, said Scout Steve Bannat, 16.
The contractors' organization takes on a different community service project every year, Ingham said. In the past, the group has built structures for Habitat for Humanity and fire departments. Ingham's personal interest in Scouting, as the leader of a Cub Scout pack at Great Bridge Baptist Church, led him to select the Camp Baker project.
The businesses and organizations contributing to the Camp Baker project include Better Performance Electric Co. Inc; CBC Enterprises Inc.; C.S. Hines; Chesapeake Bay Steel Inc.; Conrad Brothers Inc.; D.E. Kirby; Dillon Stone; E.T. Gresham Co.; Fire-X Corp.; Hall-Hodges Co.; Independence Construction Co. of Virginia; Inter Coastal Steel Erection; Lampert Construction Inc.; McKenzie Construction Corp.; Mid-Eastern Builders; National Association of Women in Construction; Resco Rents; Smith & Keene Co.; The Tidewater Children's Foundation; Vandeventer, Black, Meredith & Martin; and W.F. Magann Corp.