With our plates overloaded with barbeque, coleslaw, baked beans and hushpuppies, Ron and I searched for empty seats at the makeshift tables filling Clarkton’s tobacco warehouse. It was a month or so after the tobacco market, but the sweet smell of Brightleaf tobacco lingered. We nudged our way to a couple empty seats. Ron turned to the man and his wife sitting next to them and asked if these seats were available.
“Ya’ll good Democrats, aren’t you?” the man asked in a strong southern dialect.
“Hell yeah, wouldn’t vote no other way,” Ron shot back.
I about dropped my plate as I knew Ron had never voted for a Democrat in his life.
It was homecoming day for Jimmy Green, North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor. Green had just been acquitted for corruption. I was a young district scout executive and since many of Green’s supporters were also scout volunteers, they’d arranged from him to give a sizable gift to our camp construction campaign. I was at the homecoming to present Green with a plaque in front of his friends and neighbors on this day of celebration. Ron was my boss, the council executive. I had told him about the program, and he asked if he could tag along. Waiting for the program to begin, we ate our barbeque and drank glasses of iced tea. Ron, with his Mississippi accent, fit right in.
Ron was a salesman, and a good one. He’d recruited me to work for the Boy Scouts, taking a significant pay cut when I left the bakery. He was also a good teacher and mentor and to this day I am indebted to him. Under Ron’s tutelage, I learned to run successful fundraising campaigns which not only raised money, but empowered people to feel a part of the organization. Although on this day in Clarkton, we honored someone who’d given a five figure gift to the scouting program, Ron continually emphasized to his staff to go after every gift, regardless of size.
Emphasizing the importance of grass root gifts, Ron told and retold the story of Big Jim Folsom, a populist governor from Alabama in the mid-20th Century. Whenever Folsom spoke, he passed the hat and encouraged people to put in what they could. “Even if you don’t have any folding money, he quipped, “drop in a little change. Every gift is important, and we will use your gifts to fight for you.” Folsom’s advisors questioned this policy, reminding him he had plenty of fat-cats backing him and didn’t need to nickel and dime the poor folk. But Folsom knew better. “People make their commitment with money,” he told them, “If they give me a quarter, I don’t have to worry when the next candidate comes around seeking their support; they’ve already sealed their commitment to me.
Starting in February 1981, I worked with Ron for three years with the Cape Fear Council. I moved to the Piedmont Council in February 1984, but we kept in touch. A few months after I left, Rom moved south to become the Scout Executive for the council in Orlando, Florida. It was a big promotion. I remember talking to Ron as I was considering leaving the Scouting organization to attend Seminary. It was in the spring of 1986. As he’d done in Wilmington, Ron had been working to kicking off a major building fund campaign. They were building it around the Space Shuttle Challenger. Ron had the staff to design letterhead and logos and just a week or two before they were to kick off the campaign, the Challenger Space Shuttle blew up on take-off. They postponed the campaign.
Over the next twenty years, Ron and I mainly stayed in contact through Christmas cards. His cards often included an ointment from the council where he was serving. A few of these still remain on my Christmas trees.
After Orlando, Rom became the Scout Executive for the Council in Washington, DC. There, he got to rub shoulders with politicians of all stripes, Democrats and Republicans. He was even considered for the Chief Scouting Executive position for the whole nation. But Ron’s health began to fail. Always a workaholic, he began to realize he couldn’t concentrate on the work he’d bring home to read in the evening. He started to forget things. A physical indicated a growth in his brain. Ron consulted some of the best medical minds through the National Institute of Health, but the cancer couldn’t be contained. In late 2004, at the age of 62, Ron took a medical retirement and he and Pam moved back to Wilmington, NC.
The last time I saw Ron, it was a few days after Christmas in 2004. I had flown down to Wilmington to see my parents and Ron. We saw each other a couple of times over the few days I was home. On the day I arrived, I met with Ron and his wife Pam for ice cream at Salt Works near Bradley Creek. Ron could no longer drive. We met again for dinner. Then, before I headed home to Michigan, I allowed Pam the day to do some errands, while I sat with Ron at their home.
That morning, I asked Ron about Big Jim Folsom. We talked for a few minutes about the former governor. Ron, who had later in his career worked with many in Clinton’s administration, told me that Bill Clinton could have learned from Folsom’s straightforward approach. According to Ron, Big Jim had once been caught going into a hotel room with a beautiful young woman who wasn’t his wife. He admitted to his constituents that he’d made a mistake, but went on to say that his opponents were out to get him and that girl had been the bait they’d used and anytime they use bait that appealing, they’re going to catch Big Jim.
“Ron,” I said, “Willie wasn’t set up.”
Ron laughed and told me another story. A rumor circulated that Folsom was known to have cocktails with the Kennedy clan. “That’s a damn lie,” Folsom retorted. “Everyone knows I don’t drink cocktails, I drink my whiskey straight, just like you folks.”
Although Ron had learned the skills of motivating people from a populist governor who was also a racist, Ron worked hard to overcome the prejudices instilled in those who grew up in the South. That last day I’d spent with Ron, I reminded him of an incident that occurred one day, not long after I’d started working with the Boy Scouts.
Ron and I made a call on a Baptist pastor in Evergreen, a small community in Columbus County which did not have a scout troop at this time. Several parents and kids in the community, most of whom were black, had requested that a unit be started. We just needed to find a chartering organization.
We had pleasant chat with this pastor. But he insisted that although he’d love to see a scout program, his deacons wouldn’t allow black boys to run around in their church. I began arguing, pointing out that this wasn’t a Christian attitude. But Ron cut me off. He politely and told the pastor if things changed, to contact us. We quickly left.
As we drove away, Ron muttered, “that lying son-of-a-bitch.” “Don’t you believe he really wanted the troop,” I asked. Ron said he felt the pastor and the deacons were of the same mind. Then I asked why he didn’t want to confront the man. He said we weren’t going to change the preacher’s mind; it was best to leave with him thinking better of us than we did of him.
Ron chuckled, as I recalled the incident that had happened nearly a quarter century earlier. Ron wasn’t doing very well, having had numerous surgeries and bouts of chemotherapy to fight an aggressive brain cancer. The drugs bloated his face. He often forgot what he was saying. At about 11 that morning, Ron insisted we have ice cream. An hour later, he decided we needed a sandwich and a beer.
Ron was the only boss I had in my life who would treat his staff to drinks at lunch! And even here, a quarter century later, and just a few months before his own death, Ron treated me to a beer. Over lunch, he spoke about how he hoped to have a chance to write his memoirs. Sadly, that chance never came.
I first wrote this post about 15 years ago. I have added to it and edited it for this post.
Other Scouting Stories:
Camp Bangladesh
