top of page

STAY IN THE KNOW

Thanks for submitting!

BBQ Grills, Storage Shed and Well at Scout Site



The Brill Cabinet believed students should stay busy from wake-up time to bedtime seven days a week. Students went to school from 8:00 to 3:10.  They went back to dorm and changed their clothes for after-school activities from 3:10 to bedtime. As such, CSDR staffers formed different student organizations, sports and other extracurricular activities.



Boy Scouts Troop 18 was established in January 1955.  Carl Barber (deaf) was the first scoutmaster.  Carol Wales Barnes, E-60, adds that when her husband, Henry Barnes, ‘59, transferred from CSD Berkeley to CSDR in September 1953, he was disappointed there was no Boy Scouts Troop at the new school. The Berkeley school had a strong scouting program. Yes, the new school started with little resources and got better every year.



Later, in October, Girl Scouts Troop 175 was formed. At the time, scouting was popular for boys and girls nationwide.



A section of the campus was allotted for Boy and Girl Scouts to accommodate outdoor scouting activities. The new 1/2-acre scouting site was off Transportation Drive between House One on Maude Street and the CPO office on campus.


Dick Ramborger, ‘64, and Bill Ramborger, ‘62, arrived at CSDR from San Diego in Fall 1955 after a two-year wait list for admission.  They had to wait for a long time while additional classrooms and dormitories were under construction.



The Ramborger boys share memories of constructing the well, BBQ grills and storage shed.  Dick remembers being in a group of young boys working with Bill Peters from the Vocational Department on a design paper for a brick well. That was 1957.



With his volunteer time, Peters (see photo below) came to campus on weekends.  Boy scouts from dorms met him at the new scout-designated site. The scouts and Peters took pride in the completion of the well.



In the next school year of 1958, Scoutmaster Carl Barber invited Bill Peters, Robert Zech, Armin Turechek, Larry Bartlett and Warren Fauth to work with the boy scouts from the dorms to the scout site to construct BBQ grills and a storage shed. They worked together on weekends. That was when most boys and girls chose to stay on campus instead of going home for weekends with their families. Unfortunately, the weekend stays ended in 1973.



Since the BBQ grills needed river rocks, scouts and adult volunteers went to Lytle Creek Wash, where millions of river rocks lay in San Bernardino County. They walked through the wash and gathered good-sized stones. While the boys worked, Fauth helped himself fishing instead.



They used mortar to assemble the rocks for a long BBQ grill with two grill spaces for charcoal and wood burning.


Once the BBQ grills were completed, they shifted their focus to constructing the storage shed on weekends. The shed was needed to house camping gear and equipment for a few get-away camping trips a year.


Around 2010, the BBQ grills and storage shed had to be torn down to make room for a 100,000-gallon water tank (see photo below) for cooling systems throughout the campus.



The brick well is the only surviving relic from the scout site, and its function is to add an interesting effect to the garden's beauty.


We thank Bill, ‘62, and Dick, ‘64, Ramborger for sharing their 1950s memory for this story.


See me below from 1975 when I achieved the highest rank as an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America program at CSDR.



Kevin Struxness, ‘76

Editor, CSDR Old Times

5 January 2025



 
 
 

Comments

Rated 0 out of 5 stars.
No ratings yet

Add a rating

Inquiry

Thanks for submitting!

© Professor Kevin

bottom of page