As the Boy Scout program matured in the USA, it became apparent that Baden Powell’s Wood Badge program could provide valuable training to American Scoutmasters. To familiarize the United States with Wood Badge, John Skinner Wilson, Gilwell Park Camp Chief, came from England in 1936 to provide a Rover Scout Wood Badge Course for BSA at New Jersey's Mortimer L. Schiff Scout Reservation.
Bill Hillcourt was a member of the Burnham Patrol on that course. Four days later, Bill became the Staff Troop Leader and "Dog's (Senior Patrol Leader) for a second course qualifying him to receive his Beads in 1939, and be appointed BSA’s national Deputy Camp Chief. After a hiatus during World War II, Wood Badge Training was re-awakened to become a permanent part of the American Scouting scene. Hillcourt was one of four national Staffers--BSA's first Deputy Camp Chief, and by then, also the national Director of Scoutcraft. These four national Professional Staffers decided from the start that two BSA Wood Badge courses would be run in 1948: the first, at Schiff Scout Reservation with Scouters mostly from the Northeast, as a proving ground for this training, and the second in early December, at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, to fine-tune the program to become the standard of Wood Badge training in America. William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt was the Scoutmaster for both.
At Philmont, the course started tenuously with Professional Scouters pitted against Volunteer Scouters. SM Bill Hillcourt regrouped his Staff and broke an impasse. Patrol spirit then soared, the participants overcame the obstacles of high altitude, physical and mental fatigue, slow and difficult supply deliveries, poor communications with the Philmont Ranch base camp, and bad weather with rain, sleet, snow, and cold!
It was unquestionably a "mountaintop" experience but the tired Scouters returned home with new enthusiastic feelings for Scouting familiar to all Wood Badge participants today.
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You can learn a lot more about William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt, Scoutmaster to the World at www.scouter.com.
--WB Scribbler
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