White Stag Crew 122

Count down to White Stag 2008: 2008-08-03 13:00:00 GMT-08:00!

The spirit of the White Stag Youth Leadership Training Program is captured in the challenge issued by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of scouting, long ago at the Fourth World Jamboree in 1933, in Godollo, Hungary.

“The White Stag has a message for you. Hunters of the old pursued the miraculous stag, not because they expected to kill it, but because it lead them on the joy of the chase to new and fresh adventures, and so to capture happiness. You may look upon the White Stag as the true spirit of scouting, springing forward and upward, ever leading you onward, to leap over difficulties, to face new adventures in your active pursuit of the higher aims of Scouting, aims with bring you happiness.”

In Lord Baden Powell's "Message to Patrol Leaders" he said, “What I have often told to gathering of Patrol Leaders, I repeat now to you who read this; namely, that you have great power to do good or to do harm to the Scouts placed under your charge. It largely depends on your character and your example to them which way they go.”

There are three steps you should take:
First, win your boys by making yourself their friend and helper. Secondly, influence them by your example in conduct and in doing things. Thirdly, control them with your good sense and by keeping them to the teaching of the scout law.

Hearing these words in the audience of the 1933 World Jamboree was Bela Banathy, a Scout from Hungary. Bela would later play a key role in the formation of the White Stag Youth Leadership Development Program.

After World War II, Bela emigrated from Hungary to the United States, and eventually became an instructor at the Army Language School. He later became an instructor at the Defense Language Institute, in Monterey, California. At this time Bela was also the chairman of the Leadership Training Committee of the Monterey Bay Area Council. Bela adapted the leadership programs that he developed for the HumRO US Army leadership programs for an experimental patrol leader training program in 1957.

In 1959, White Stag was founded as the Monterey Council's Leadership Training Program. In 1962, Dr. Maurice Tripp, of the National Council visited Bela and the White Stag Program. Then in 1967, the national council held an experimental Wood Badge Course at Schiff Scout Reservation and one at Philmont. The BSA National Council established the goal of infusing the principles inherent in White Stag, including that of “Leadership Program by Design” into the Wood Badge Program.