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| Tracy Press, Monday, Oct. 13, 2003 |
| by Kerana Todorov |
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| CUB SCOUT PACK FORMS FOR MTN. HOUSE BOYS |
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Parents in the Mountain House area will not have to travel far to sign up their boys for the Cub Scouts. A group of parents in the Mountain House area have organized Cub Scout Pack 511, thinking that as the new town grows, more elementary-school-aged boys are likely to move in. More than 50 families have already settled in the new community, where as many as 45,000 people could live, according to the Mountain House Community Services District.
The Cub Scouts, a division of the Boy Scouts of America, is open to boys in first through fifth grades.
So far, 14 boys have signed up for Cub Scouts Pack 511, parents said Friday. Pack 511 meets every third Thursday at Lammersville Elementary School on West Von Sosten Road, a short drive from the new town on the edge of Tracy. Don Burnett said he asked the Scouts representative for the area last March if Cub Scout group could be formed near Mountain House.
A longtime resident of Alameda County, he preferred not having to drive all the way to Tracy to take his youngest son to the Cub Scouts, he said. With Mountain House under construction, he was certain there would be enough boys in the area to make a good-size pack, he said. Debbie Dahl-Hanson, who lives near Mountain House, is now the group’s committee chairwoman. Her son, Dale, has joined pack 511, and her husband, Steven Hanson, serves as cub master. "We’re becoming our won city," Dahl-Hanson said of the Mountain House area.
Burnett said the boys who belong to Pack 511 are likely to take part in activities such as hiking the Altamont and crafting kites. "We can fly a kit anytime (in the Altamont)," he noted. A camping trip to the Del Valle Regional Park is already planned, he said.
Other likely activities include visits to the Delta and barbecues near the California Aqueduct. Bradford Bryant, senior district executive for the Great Yosemite Council of the Boy Scouts, said a Cub Scout pack existed in the area about 15 years ago. It folded when the leadership moved away, he said. The official sponsor for Pack 511 is Trimark Communities LLC, the company that is developing much of the Mountain House. Trimark was asked to give $1,000 up front, Bryant said. The company will also supply the group with materials.
A Trimark representative could not be reached for comment Friday. The Greater Yosemite Council, which stretches from Galt to Yosemite, grows by as much as 4 percent a year, said Bryant, a retired Methodist minister from Tracy. About 600 boys from Tracy are enrolled in the Boy Scouts he said.
For information: Debbie Dahl-Hanson, 833-1121. |
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