By Cliff Coan

James Perkins died Wednesday, Dec. 23, 1998. It was a sad day for me, for Scouting, for De Leon, Texas, and the world. We will all be much poorer without him.

Mr. Perkins is remembered by many as a teacher, coach, principal and superintendent of De Leon schools. He was a math teacher, a principal for nine years, a school superintendent for 21 years.

He was also the Scoutmaster of Troop 37 for 28 years. He became a member of the Order of the Arrow in 1952 at age 22, and received the Vigil Honor in Oct. 1991. Mr. Perkins received the Silver Beaver Award in 1977. He was National Jamboree Scoutmaster in 1981, and served on the Jamboree Staff for five Jamborees. He was Council Commissioner of Comanche Trail Council, BSA, in 1990, and Council President in 1991 and 1992. He served as Council Camping Chairman in 1993-94. Mr. Perkins became a James E. West Fellow in 1997.

Those are the bare bones of his Scouting careers, but let me flesh it out.

He came to our fifth grade classroom one day, and he spoke to us about the Boy Scouts. It sounded like fun, so I went. It was something new to me -- I'd always been outdoors-minded, but no one in my immediate family went on camping trips (Depression-era farm life had pretty well exhausted their need to rough it). Mr. Perkins took a pickup load of us rowdy boys, and loved every minute of it. It would be the beginning of a life-long love of the outdoors for me.

Mr. Perkins took boys everywhere he went, and did so for years. When I found out, it never failed to surprise me that the older members of the community who I looked up to had been some of "his boys" or "his Scouts." He took us to Camp Billy Gibbons in the winter, where we told ghost stories around a fireplace, scaring ourselves to death when someone bumped the elk head on the wall and caused a stampede of terrified 11-year-olds when it fell. We descended into the first real cave most of us had ever seen. We cooked, away from the pantry and mom for the first time.

Mr. Perkins lived and taught us the Scout Oath and Law, and most of us decided they were good things to live by. "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my Country, . . . to help other people at all times and keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight" and being "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent" encompass a world of morality in succinct terms an 11-year-old can comprehend.

He taught us knots -- not too many -- but none of us ever forgot the square knot, the taut-line hitch or the bowline -- "The rabbit goes out of its hole, around the tree and back into its hole." The campfire games were also a rite of passage. You weren't really part of the group until you figured out "Silly Tilly" and "I'm Going on a Picnic." "The Magic Circle" took a lot longer, and some Scouts and Scouters still haven't figured it out.

We learned how to pitch a tent, how to pack a pack, how to use a map and compass, how to stalk and how to play "Capture the Flag." We also learned what "mullet!" meant, and what it meant to have a guilty conscience, and learned it was wise to stay clear when Mr. Perkins' long-suffering patience finally snapped.

Several of us out of that group -- myself, Paul Tate and Craig Smith come to mind -- advanced far along the trail to Eagle Scout before succumbing to the banes of Scouting advancement (school activities and the twin scents of adolescence -- perfume and gasoline). We never did make it to Eagle, to our and Mr. Perkins' everlasting regret, but we and he never lost touch with the ideals.

During the summer following our junior year, Mr. Perkins took us to the summit of Scouting at Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, N.M. We didn't know what to expect, so he mercilessly overtrained us with running, football and basketball as conditioning for the high altitude backpacking. He was in his glory as we hiked the mountains and trails, and we had the experience of a lifetime.

We went again the following year, but the group was breaking up, heading for college and life. That life drew me away from De Leon for a while, but on any trip back that found me at a football or basketball game, I could count on Mr. Perkins being there and catching up.

The stands were empty for a while after he had his first heart attack, but he returned as soon as he was able. He even made another trip to Philmont. "I was in the best shape of my life," he told me. "I had to do it to prove it to myself that I could."

When I eventually moved back to De Leon, Mr. Perkins asked me to serve on the troop committee that oversaw the local Scout troop. Here, I saw one of his few failings. Mr. Perkins was, he confessed to me, "really bad" at asking people for money. Scout troops take money to run, and to outfit, and he never wanted any boy to miss out on Scouting because he couldn't afford it. But Mr. Perkins was terribly reluctant to ask anyone for money, and as a result, he spent untold thousands of his own dollars on the boys and the troop. As he was unmarried and childless, he said, he considered them his kids.

"Mr. P," as the boys had taken to calling him in the years I'd been away, called me late one spring with an urgent request. The troop had a Philmont expedition scheduled, and one of the adult leaders wouldn't be able to go, he said. Could I step in? He'd given up the hiking, he said, but he'd drive us out and stay at the base camp until we returned.

I hesitated only a moment. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. I went, and loved every minute of it. The boys adjusted to my style of advising (totally different from Mr. P's) just fine. Philmont constantly stresses that the expeditions are to be run by the youth -- "This is the advisors' vacation. They are just along for the walk." If Mr. P. had a failing on the trail, it was that his style of leadership was to take charge and see that everything was done right. I let the boys make their own mistakes, as long as they weren't in danger, and we managed just fine. But the trail discipline and self-reliance we painstakingly built disappeared in an instant when Mr. P caught a ride out to one camp and the boys flocked around him like puppies.

Then, days later, there he was early one morning, reading a paper sitting at the gate to the basecamp when we hiked in, dirty and tired from the mountains.

Our differing styles of leadership complemented each other well, so as my son neared Scouting age I became involved again as an assistant Scoutmaster. Perk continued to keep the troop running, and it was a thrill of pride that coursed through me as I watched my son get his first badges from the same Scoutmaster who pressed the cloth badges into my sweaty 11-year-old palm long ago.

Before long, I took another crew to Philmont. Perk -- I finally felt comfortable calling him that (at least in private) after all those years -- drove us up again. But one of his "adopted sons," Tad Tate, came along to aid and abet him in escaping the basecamp. "I stayed in the lodges and helped out with the mail last time," Perk said, "and all those old men down there about drove me crazy!" So when we left for the trail, Perk and Tad headed out for Angel Fire or somewhere and the golf course.

Within the next year, my son moved to live with his mother in Mansfield, and I eventually withdrew from the Assistant Scoutmastership to head up an Explorer Post. Perk once again kept the troop running, recruiting Kerry Grisham (another former Scout of his) to take over the Scoutmaster position.

We have another Philmont expedition slated this summer, but Perk won't be there. I'll carry something of his with me in my pack, and leave it on the highest mountain we climb. He helped me and many others climb the highest peaks, and it's only fitting. I'll leave the memento behind, but I'll always carry Perk with me.

Submitted 12/28/98.