Leiendecker longtime Boy Scout volunteer

Van Wert independent/Boy Scouts information

As the Boy Scouts of America celebrate their 102nd anniversary this year, a local man his 62nd continuous year as a scout — one of the longest scouting tenures in the Black Swamp Area Council of the Boy Scouts’ Hawthorn District.

Remarkably, that doesn’t even include his first scouting experience when he joined Troop 123 in Custer back in 1935.

It was just 25 years before that Chicago publisher William D. Boyce was helped by one of the British Boy Scouts when he lost his way in dense fog in London, England. The boy, explaining that, as a scout, he would not take a tip for doing a “good turn” (the British equivalent of American scouts’ Good Deed), impressed Boyce and led to a meeting between him and David Baden-Powell, British founder of the Boy Scouts.

Boyce incorporated what is now known as the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910, under the laws of the District of Columbia, and four months later 34 national representatives of boys’ work agencies met to establish the scouting organization.

After earning the rank of Life Scout in Custer, Leiendecker left scouting and enlisted in the United States Navy in 1942, where he served during World War II. After the war was over in 1945, the local man entered college, graduated and became a teacher, later retiring after more than three decades in that profession.

In 1950, he again became involved in scouting with the Ohio City Cup Scout Pack and Boy Scout Troop his sons joined, serving as assistant scoutmaster and scoutmaster.

In 1960, Leiendecker and his wife, Jean, joined First United Methodist Church in Van Wert. He began serving on the church’s Boy Scout Troop Committee and also served as assistant scoutmaster, as well as Troop 31 treasurer, a position he has held for more than 30 years.

Leiendecker then became interested in the district scout organization, serving as roundtable commissioner for three years in the Shawnee Council, Little Turtle District. He also attended the Philmont National Scout Ranch in Cimarron, N.M., for three years, two of those as an instructor with the Boy Scout commissioner training staff.

In 1972, he received the Silver Beaver Award, one of the highest awards given to an adult scouting member and also received his Wood Badge Award, which requires additional in-depth adult leadership training.

As a teacher, church member and scout, Leiendecker provides encouragement and a helping hand. He also lives by the Scout Law, which states that a scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.

Local Scouting

The Boy Scouts, one of the nation’s largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations, has thrived in America for more than 100 years, with local scouting units under the direction the Hawthorn District, Black Swamp Area Council located in Findlay.

In Van Wert, scouting units include Cub Scout Pack 31, Boy Scout Troop 31 at First United Methodist Church; Cub Scout Pack 35, Boy Scout Troop 35 and Venturing Crew 35 (former Explorer Post) at First Presbyterian Church; Cub Scout Pack 33 at St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church; Cub Scout Pack 32 at Middle Point United Methodist Church; and Cub Scout Pack 45 and Boy Scout Troop 45 at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Convoy.