[Philmont] What is a Philmont Ranger?

This is from Warren Smith, a newspaper editor

----Forwarded Message(s)----

     02-Jul-07 20:19:23
 Sb: Fwd: What is a Philmont Ranger?
From: Warren Smith <warren.smith@thecharlotteworld.com>

Friends:

When I was in college, I worked at Philmont Scout Ranch, near Cimarron, NM.
In fact,
I met my wife Missy there. Since then, I have been active in the Philmont
Staff
Association, a 2400-member alumni group of former staff members. I wrote
this article
for that organization's magazine, "High Country," on the occasion of the 50th
anniversary
of the Ranger Department.

I hope you enjoy it.

Warren

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~

What Is A Ranger?

By Warren Smith

In the beginning, it must have seemed like a pretty straightforward idea.
Crews come
to Philmont. Rangers take them around.

That, at its most basic level, is what a Ranger is.

Or so it was on June 15, 1957, when the first group of 50 or so Rangers stood
around
the first Chief Ranger's office - it was not yet called the R.O. -- in the
early
morning, wondering who would get the honor of taking the first crew, of being
the
first Ranger in the history of Philmont. When 615-C pulled up in from
Oklahoma, Chief
Ranger C.E. Dunn turned to young David Jung and said, "David, why don't you
take
this one?"

But things evolved. Over time, a Ranger became not just someone who showed
the crews
around, but someone who, shall we say, showed the crews around in a certain
way,
with a kind of Ranger style. Rangers learned to talk gear and water and maps
and
bears. To teach, to explain, and sometimes to demonstrate. Rangers don't know
everything,
not by a long-shot. But enough, because they'd heard the questions before,
and they'd
memorized the answers. 137,000 acres. 214 square miles. Black. Bear. Cito.
Phillips.
Touch-Me-Not. Baldy. The Circle-O Brand. Clear and copious.

As the old saying goes, "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
At
Philmont, at least to the campers, and sometimes to the disgust of the rest
of the
staff, Rangers became kings.

So that's what being a Ranger is, too. It's that feeling, for one brief and
shining
summer, that you were born to be a king.

One day I felt like a king. I had left a crew early one morning at Lookout
Meadow.
I knew that if I got the crew up early, said my goodbyes quickly, and walked
fast,
I could make the downhill hike through Lower Bonito and Rayado Canyons in
time to
make the morning bus. I could be back in base camp by 10 am. I made it, after
running
part of the way. I was surprised to see the real king of the Ranger
department that
year, Chief Ranger Dave Caffey, get off the bus. "Dave," I blurted out in the
midst
of my endorphin rush, "I made it from Lookout Meadow to the turnaround in
less than
two hours!" I might as well have shouted, "Look at me! I'm king of the world!"

He just said, "There's a lot of beautiful country between here and Lookout
Meadow."
Those words, even thirty years later, ring in my ears like a black-powder
rifle blast.

So, that day I learned something new about what a Ranger is. Sure, he might
be able
to walk fast. But can he walk slowly, too? It's one thing to strut around
like a
king, and quite another to walk humbly in the Hall of the Mountain King, to
borrow
an ancient expression. Could that be what a Ranger is, too?

The next summer, in early June of 1978, all of us who were Rangers learned to
walk
a bit more humbly. I, by coincidence, was at the Welcome Center when a
first-year
Ranger, Russell Phillips, got out of a station wagon. I shook his hand and
said,
"Welcome to Philmont." I shook his mother's hand, too. I told them both what
a great
summer it was going to be for us all, and I told mom not to worry. We had him
now.
He'd be fine. Russell's mother smiled, hugged her son one last time, and
drove away.

Later that summer, Russell was sitting high on a rock in Rayado Canyon, alone
in
the midst of what Dave Caffey had called that "beautiful country" on the way
to Lookout
Meadow. We don't know exactly what happened next. We only know that, somehow,
Russell
fell. After a day of searching, a Ranger found him at the base of that rock.
More
Rangers carried him out, some with tears in their eyes. None of them talking,
except
when necessary. The new Chief Ranger, Randy Day, accompanied Russell's body
back
to Tulsa and returned him to his mother.

None of us felt like kings that day. But some of learned, I guess, that all
of that
is what a Ranger is, too.

Forty years after being tapped as the first Ranger, David Jung made one last
trip
to Philmont. He was an old man now, with a white beard. His body was wracked
by Parkinson's
Disease, but he was determined to go on the Philmont Staff Association's
week-long
trek, to take one last trip into the backcountry. I saw him sitting alone in
the
restaurant of the St. James Hotel in Cimarron the night before he was to hit
the
trail, so I sat down from him. He smiled at me, but this normally gregarious
man
said nothing. Only then did I realize that he was shaking uncontrollably.
This trembling
is one of the most debilitating symptoms of Parkinson's. He was struggling to
open
a pillbox with his trembling hands.

"Can I help?" I said.

"N-n-n-no," he stuttered. And I watched as David slowly, with great
determination,
extracted a pill and somehow got it in his mouth. I thought to myself, "I
don't care
if he was the First Ranger. That was 40 years ago. How is this guy going to
spend
five days on the trail?" But within seconds of swallowing that little pill,
his trembling
subsided. With a now steady hand - though still slowly and deliberately, with
an
obvious weariness -- David reached out and took a sip from the glass in front
of
him. Only then did he look me straight in the eye. I don't know if David knew
then
he did not have much longer to live, but I wondered even then if that might
be the
case. And, indeed, just a few years later, he was gone.

But on that night, Philmont's first Ranger pushed disease and the possibility
of
death aside. And when the trembling in his hands and voice subsided, he
looked me
straight in the eye and smiled, and said with complete sincerity, "Isn't it
great
to be at Philmont?"

"Yes, David," I said. "It certainly is."

And that, my friends, is what a Ranger is, too. In fact, that may be what a
Ranger
is most of all.

Warren Smith spent seven years on Philmont staff, including three in the
Ranger department.
His wife Missy was also a Ranger. Daughter Brittany was a Ranger in 2006 and
2007.
by warren.smith@thecharlotteworld.com

World Newspaper Publishing | 201 S. College Street | Suite 2010 | Charlotte |
NC | 28244

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Received on Mon Jul 2 21:57:15 2007