History of

Immokalee Lodge #353

1973 Immokalee Lodge Tap-Out Ceremony

held for the Lake District of Chehaw Council

(Photos from the scrapbook of Ms. Evelyn Wages and

provided by her son Ben Andrews, Vigil member of Immokalee Lodge.)

          The photos below are from the 1973 Lake District OA Tap-out Ceremony, which was done at the Lake District Camporee.  The Camporee was held at the Americus fair ground and was held just before summer camp probably in May.  Each of the three districts in Chehaw Council held a camporee that weekend, but Lake District was the only OA Chapter that had its own dance team and held its own tap-out. 

          The lodge did not want the Chapters doing their own ceremonies.  The District adults told the ceremony team to go ahead and do it.  The District was going through one of those rebellious periods with the Council.  The Ceremony Team had to write its own script as it could not get any ceremony books from the Lodge.  The ceremony included a shortened version of the legend which was taken from the little printed sheet that we got when we bought one of the legend patches for the back of our sashes. 

          The District never intended the District tap out to take the place of the ceremony at summer camp.  The adults just thought the candidates would be called out twice.  However, when the Scouts who we had tapped-out went to summer camp, the Lodge would not tap them out again.  At the end of the Camp Osborn's tap-out, the Lodge simply announced something like, “Would the following Scouts who were called out at a previous event come forward and join the new candidates for the Order,” and then marched them all off together.  The Lodge got its revenge and the chapter did not do it again. 

           Ben Andrews

           Member, 1973 Lake District Ceremony Team

         We were to do a tap out during a jamboree at the Americus fairgrounds.  There was a pretty good size pile of wood someone had stacked up for the campfire that evening and I wanted to make sure there was no problem getting it started so that afternoon I poured a 5 gallon can of diesel fuel on the wood pile.  Needless to say the fire had no problem starting that evening almost had to clear the fairgrounds.  Ceremony was delayed a good 10 minutes or so until the diesel burned off and everyone could get back to within 50 yards of the campfire. 

           William Carlan

           Member, 1973 Lake District Ceremony Team