Cambridge Lions serving Cambridge, Ohio and it's surrounding communities since 1924!
Latest News: April 2009
Latest News
What is happening at the Cambridge Ohio Lions Club
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Boy Scouts Update the Lions
“Leadership, Character, Community Service, Achievement, and the Outdoors. These are the five core values of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA),” said Jeff Wickerham to the Cambridge Lions Club. “We are getting ready to celebrate Scouting’s one hundredth year.”
Wickerham is the Senior District Executive of the Muskingum Valley Council of the BSA. He was accompanied by Doug Devor, district paraprofessional of the council.
“We are proud of our history of helping others in our community,” Wickerham said. BSA was started in the United States in February of 1910. Boys can become members of the Cub Scouts at the age of six, Boy Scouts at the age of eleven, and Varsity or Venturing Scouts at age fourteen.
BSA promotes the values exemplified in the Scout Oath that reads in part, “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law.” The Scout Law states that “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”
“The Scout Motto is Be Prepared,” Wickerham said. “We are starting our planning early. We will have an Eagle Scout gathering to honor those who have achieved scouting’s highest rank. We will have 100th Anniversary Banners, a patch program for Scouts and scouting alumni, and a Ten Commandments Walk organized by multiple churches in the community.”
“We have over fifty adult volunteers in Guernsey County and over one hundred scouts,” said Devor. “We have four Cub Scout packs, and three troops (of Boy Scouts) and a Venture Crew.”
“We have an Explorer post in Lore City, Cub Scout packs at Cambridge North and South Schools, and Boy Scout troops at Beckett United Methodist Church, the Knight of Columbus, and First Christian Church. We also have scouts in Old Washington, Antrim, and Kimbolton. We would like to start programs in Cumberland and Quaker City.” For more information about scouting programs visit the web site at www.muskingumvalleycouncil.com
Cambridge Lions inducted new member Todd Simmons who was sponsored by his father, Bryce Simmons, in a ceromony presided over by Deputy District Governer Tom Cahoon. “We know that you will help us serve our community by helping with the club’s goal of fighting preventable blindness,” Cahoon said. Pictures at right: from left brother Lion Troy, father and sponser Bryce, and new member Todd.
“The money we raise is put to work right here in the state,” said Tom Cahoon, Lions District 13-G Deputy Governor. “I visited the Ohio Lions Eye Research Foundation (OLERF). I saw the dedication of the people working there and the equipment that Lions’ funds have provided.”
OLERF is dedicated to helping children and adults with eye care concerns by funding research throughout Ohio. OLERF has funded research conducted at Case Western Reserve, Medical College of Ohio at Toledo, the University of Cincinnati, The Ohio State University, Children’s Hospital in Columbus, and Wright State University.
Cahoon presented a certificate from OLERF to Bill Wagner for his contributions to the goals of the Cambridge Lions Club. Wagner helps with many club activities including sorting and packaging used eye glasses for recycling.
OLERF recently conducted a special fund raising drive called “Twist for Sight” for research into the causes and cures of age-related macular degeneration. This drive was a special challenge to club tail twisters, members responsible for some good-natured ribbing of fellow Lions at regular meetings.
Cahoon presented Tim McKim with a pin for his “tail twisting” efforts in helping to raise the local club’s share of the OLERF goal of twenty thousand dollars.
Cahoon presented past-president Pat Craig with an award for excellence in the club presidency. Craig was one of three who received this award in the forty-four club district.
Cambridge Lions Club is hosting the 2009 Seneca Lake Open Bass Tournaments Sunday, May 17 and Sunday September 13 both from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Cost is $100 per Team per Event, with a $10 late fee at the ramp. This is an individual tournament, no championship. We also offer anoptional Big Bass for $10. There is a 5 fish limit per boat for competition. Come join the fun and help support the Cambridge Lions Club projects such as eye examinations, eye glasses, and diabetes support.
Estimated Payout based on 30 Entrants:
$1400
$610
$220
$150
$100
$70
(does not include Big Bass Option)
Optional Big Bass $10
Pays 2 Places (70% / 30%)
$20 Advance Registration Fee, balance Due on day of event.
Deputy District Governer Tom Cahoon presented a copy of the Guernsey County Family History Book to Rich Goodwin, director of the Guernsey County Library. The library will store the book in its holdings with public access.
“Every grenade is live; we don’t want people touching them,” said Vietnam veteran Pat Craig to the Cambridge Lions Club. “Once I carried a grenade out of a hospital. We put sand bags around it and blew it up. Of course, we warned the hospital when we were about to set it off.”
“I got into this line of work when I was in the army,” Craig said. “In 1969 I got a letter from the President inviting me to join the army. I was drafted in September and went to basic training. I was interested in electronics and thought being a radio relay and carrier person might be interesting. I didn’t really know what that meant.”
Pictured: left Pat Craig with program chair Gary Lyons
“I had a friend in Vietnam at the time. He told me that I would be out in the bush carrying radio equipment. I had high test scores so I was asked if I wanted to get training in explosive ordinance disposal.”
“It was Friday afternoon; I saw some of the guys sitting around playing pinochle and drinking beer,” Craig said. “I liked to play pinochle and drink beer so I signed up for the training.”
“That’s how I got started being part of the explosive ordinance disposal team, otherwise known as the bomb squad,” Craig said. “You got ten weeks of training in chemical and war gases. Then you got four to five months of training in conventional explosives, both ours and theirs.”
“You learned how to disarm explosives to make them safe. Our mission was to keep us safe. We had manuals for some of the explosives. You had to keep the manuals covered because satellites can read a manual.”
Craig has continued working in ordinance disposal after his twenty-year military career. There are about eight hundred people nationwide who are trained in ordinance disposal. “We get calls from the police when they find something that might look like an explosive device,” Craig said.
Craig showed one device that looked suspicious. “We didn’t know what it was. The top looked like it could be some kind of detonator. We took the top off and found that it was a military flare.”
“We have been called to remove picric acid from high schools.” Picric acid can become highly explosive over time and can be sensitive to friction and shock.
“We work with the secret service to clear all the places where the president might go. We did a sweep when Obama was in Zanesville. We probe plants and seat cushions; we look above the ceiling tile in rooms; we check all the electric switches.”
“I worked in Plains, Georgia, for two weeks when Carter was President,” Craig said. “We checked all the mail with x-rays and a fluoroscope. We also had to check out the church there.”
“There are some bomb sniffing dogs. They are trained differently from drug dogs. Sometimes drug dogs are trained to paw at packages. You don’t want bomb sniffing dogs to be pawing at packages.”
“If you find some old military ordinance we want you to leave it alone until we can make sure it is safe,” Craig said. “We don’t want people touching it. Some explosive devices are sensitive to heat, some are sensitive to movement.” “We would rather say, ‘You called; we hauled,’ than to have anyone hurt by military souvenirs that have not been made safe.”
Tom Cahoon presented the W. R. Dick Bryan Ohio Diabetes Research Foundation award to club secretary Barry Ross for his outstanding contributions to the club’s projects. Bryan was a past president of Lions Clubs International.
“I plan to move to the area close to the first responder training facility,” said Dennis DeChant to the Cambridge Lions Club. “I plan to have my family there, so I, too, want it to be a safe place to live. We understand that people are concerned. That’s why we are trying to get information out about the facility.”
Templar Tactical is a company formed by DeChant and Bill Janson to meet the need for modern training facilities for police, sheriffs, and fire departments, S.W.A.T. teams, drug enforcement agencies, security forces, reserve and other military units.
“Safety is one of our primary concerns,” said Janson. “One of the reasons we selected this site is because of the terrain that provides a natural barrier. We will also be installing protective berms around the firing ranges. These earthen berms will be twenty feet high.”
“We are a half mile from the county home with a big hill in between. We are a half mile from the homes nearby.
“We know that noise has been a concern of neighbors so we have been doing sound testing at the site,” Janson said. “We will be putting up sound baffling. Our tests without the baffles registered sixty-seven decibels at the boundary of our property. Two people talking is sixty-five decibels.”
“When we were on top of the hill the wind registered sixty-two decibels. We couldn’t get a reading for the rounds that were fired down in the valley.”
“The training will be limited to small arms fire,” Janson said. “We will have nothing larger than .308 caliber rifles. There is no truth to the rumor that we will be training with tanks.”
“We will have one hundred percent monitoring of the firing ranges by safety officers,” Janson said. “We will have a ratio of one instructor for every four trainees. Trainees will be law enforcement officers, fire fighters, military personnel, and vetted private security firms that protect Americans abroad. The facility will not be open to the public.”
“We are two veterans who have seen the lack of modern training facilities in the state,” Janson said. “Contrary to some rumors, we have no ties to Blackwater or Halliburton. It’s just us and our venture capital finance company.”
“We expect to create from ten to twenty jobs for local people,” Janson said. “We will need a facilities manager, maintenance people, customer service and security personnel. We will have twenty-four hours per day security.”
“We will also have people staying in local motels, eating at local restaurants, and we may have catering services bring food to the site.”
“We want to be a good neighbor,” Janson said. “We want to get information out to people in the county. We are trying to make ourselves known to the people here. We want people to get correct information. We understand that this is an emotional issue for those living in the area.”
More information about Templar Tactical is available at www.templartactical.com. Reporter’s note: Tactical Defense Institute, located in Adams County, Ohio, offers similar training. This reporter’s calls to the Adams County Commissioners and the Adams County Sheriff’s Office revealed that they have not received any calls complaining of noise. A call to the Institute revealed that there had been one complaint about twenty years ago about gunfire after midnight. The Institute representative reported that it was a false report.
