John C. Cooper Era: 1960s-1990s- general

Editable version of Cooper Era Index:

A few years into the troop Korea veteran John C. Cooper "temporarily" took over as Scoutmaster. Little did we know he would hold that position for over 30 years. Cooper was known for his stern, direct, and timely military-style leadership.

Basic Troop Organization under Cooper:

In the Cooper Era the troop was organized with a number of "Patrols" for 5th to 8th graders, as well as a "Corps" for high-schoolers, and a high-school aged "Staff". Young Scouts History, Corps History , Staff History also Dads' History   The number of scout increased over Cooper's 30+ year tenure beginning with 30+ scout and ballooning up to 150+ by the late 1990s. This expansion was facilitated by computerized record keeping implemented as far back as 1972 by Dick Hough (?) and others.

Patrols were numbered from "Patrol 1" and up. Often getting to 8 or even 15. The "Corps" style of organization fell out of favor with BSA national in the early 1990s, but continued 82 officially until the beginning of the 2008 school year. Before 1997 the Staff was considered the more distinguished high-school group. However the late 1990s (1997?) John Cooper made the decision that all high school freshmen first went to the Corpse before joining the staff. This diminished the clout of "going-directly-to-staff". Staff was however still higher regarded than Corps because the ranking Senior Patrol Leader, and Group Patrol Leaders were on the Staff. Staff also wore a uniform 'yellow Staff shirt' at campouts. Staffers also sported a white t-shirt featuring the Staff Infection "Super Virus", a powerful card from the game Nuclear War played at summer camp. The white shirt read: "Staff, Catch the Infection".

Cooper's Discipline:

John Cooper was fastidious in his record keeping of scouts, most notoriously for discipline. When something wrong happened in the Troop, harmless prank or cruel tragedy, Cooper knew the culprit seeming before they themselves did. Cooper empower 8th-grade-patrol-leaders and 7th-grade-assistants to write "DARs" (Disciplinary Action Reports.) A good "CAR" could also be written for favorable conduct by scouts. Cooper famously retorted "Write 'um up!" in response to discipline matters.