TROOP 14 HISTORY
Troop 14 was chartered in 1968 in the Cumberland Heights area of Bluefield, WV. It was sponsored by the Cumberland Hts School PTA and leading founders of this group were Bob and Thelma Massie, Gordon and Frances StClair. Mrs Massie had a cub scout den and the boys didn't have a troop to go to after cub scouting, so the idea was formulated to have a scout troop in their area. Some of the charter members of the troop were Kelly Massie, Monty StClair, Sam Froy, Jr., Mike Romano, Keith Williams, Gary Romano. The original scoutmaster was a Mr. George Chidester who was at that time a DE with scouting under the Appalachian Council, BSA. The scoutmaster later became Frank Williams whose son Keith was in the scout troop. Mr Williams resigned when the present scoutmaster, Wayne Hartley took over in 1970. The committee chairman at that time was Gordon StClair and assistant scoutmaster was Roy Boyd.
As time would have it, in 1971, the Mercer School Board voted to outlaw all clubs meeting in school system buildings other than those clubs which were directly under the supervision of the school board, so Troop 14 had to look for a new sponsor. It met at the Mountaineer Bowling Alley for approximately three months, until the 304th Military Police Reserve Unit began to sponsor the troop. The troop liason was Jimmy Barlow, a member of the reserve unit. At this time, Phil Arrington had become the committee chairman working with the scoutmaster and his wife Pat Hartley serving as the lead assistant scoutmaster along with a young man who grew through the troop, Jeff Siers who worked as one of the assistants. The scout troop met at the reserve building for approximately three years and then had to look for yet another sponsor.
The troop moved to the First Christian Church in 1974, with Phil Arrington as the chairman, Wayne Hartley as scoutmaster, Pat Hartley as assistant scoutmaster, Jeff Siers - assistant scoutmaster, Cy Pruett - assistant scoutmaster, and Russell Taylor, assistant scoutmaster. Troop 14 has been sponsored by the church since that time to the present.
Troop 14 has an active program in Bluefield with the current adult staff of 16 with two Junior Assistants-Scott Cardwell and Abram Woodward. The current senior patrol leader is Nathaniel Oliver, and his assistant is Lawrence Calfee.
A lot of family history in this troop still prevails in today's members. Kelly Massie and Monty StClair became the first two Eagle scouts. The troop at one time had two brothers receive Eagle at the same court of honor - Bruce Jones and Mark Jones, along with another son of the troop comm. chr. - Dan Arrington, whose brother later became another Eagle Scout-Jeff Arrington. The asst. scoutmaster, Russell Taylor is the son-in-law of an earlier District Executive-Charlie Turner, and Russell has three sons who are Eagles in the troop- Andy Taylor, Chuck Taylor, and Jared Taylor. One committee member was a long time district executive in our council at that time, the Applachian Council - Charles Troup. Abram Woodward , another Eagle is the grandson of longtime scoutmaster Harman Woodward. Another Eagle is Nathaniel Oliver, grandson of Paul Oliver, longtime scoutmaster and scout promoter of Camp Roland.
There are possibly other connections to the history of Troop 14, that we not even know about, but our troop remains proud of it's heritage of the last 47 years of existence.
