July 28th, our Troop headed up to Camp Cooper, in the Oregon Coast Range near Willamina. 37 boys in all, tons of gear, a few pounds of candy, 3 eager full time adults, 1-2 per day visiting adults and lots of enthusiasm ready to have fun.

Camp Cooper is unique, it's a smaller camp with lots to do. The Merit badge classes offered were good and pretty well run. They had mountain biking, canoeing, (on a bit of a marginal lake) COPE course and a full gamut of other activities to fill the time. The boys did well, got along good, with the exception of a few incidents'. Over all, summer camp was a success.

We had many boys advance in rank, some two ranks, close to a hundred merit badges earned, 5 boys do the mountain biking daily and 6 boys complete the COPE course. Brandon Hamilton, AKA.. "Hamey" completed his Life Saving Merit Badge. Justin and Jason Meengs, and Jeff Bortner earned their Wilderness Survival Merit Badge, complete with an overnight stay in the woods without any gear. Miles, Tyson, Eric, Willie, Greg and Devin had a great experience at the COPE course. Rob Pennell and I both were fortunate and able to run the high course, (Yikes, heights are not my bag) but it was great!

To all 37 of you boys, I hope you enjoyed yourselves at Camp, I certainly did. We had a few incidents' that I wish we could of avoided, but I hope we all learned from them. I enjoyed getting to know each one of you better, and feel with our new releations, our troop will grow stronger. We, the adults at camp, felt it was a successful week, and they too, enjoyed it as much as I did.

A special thanks to Rob Pennell and Erik Matson who were there all week, it COULD not have worked without you there. Also to Des Wellsmore, Mark Corigliano, Jim McMahon, Rob Meengs and Peter Blundell, your help was huge. Thank you!.

                                            In Scouting,

                                                     Vince