Fred Gervat
We lost one
of our faithful long-term Camp Hinds staff
men and supporters when Fred Gervat
passed away in April of 2018. I first met
Fred in 1963, when I was program director
and Fred rode a bus from New York
City to Raymond to begin his first
year on the camp staff. I picked
him up on route 302 and gave
him a ride to Camp Hinds, not
knowing that we would be traveling
many places together in the next fifty
years.
As the next
few years passed Fred returned from
the Bronx to Hinds to serve as
director of Scoutcraft, Nature, Craft Shop,
provisional scoutmaster, commissioner, and CIT
director, every year from 1963 to 1978.
The Lodge made Fred a Vigil Honor
member in 1971.
For one year
Fred moved to Maine, rented a home
in Windham, and taught school in a
nearby community. He also served that
year as District Advisor to Casco Bay's
Order of the Arrow chapter and involved
himself in their activities.
Fred happily joined us
on a cross-country drive to Philmont
Scout ranch in 1972, after Hinds closed for the season,
when we drove two crews of Scouts
from Maine to New Mexico in a
five-car covoy, with drivers including Fred,
Tom Curran and me. (We didn't actually
drive in a "convoy", we spread out
on the highway with planned meeting
spots ahead , it's safer that way.) His claim
to fame on that trip was when
he found the money pouch I dropped
in a restroom in Oklahoma, and presented
it back to me that night with
much ceremony.)
After he married
in the late seventies Fred's summers were
spent closer to home but he still
made visits back to Maine, including
regular attendance at Madockawanda Lodge's annual
banquets, where he filled me in every
December on his activities in New York.
The lure of
camp Hinds attracted Fred back to Maine
in 2008 and 2009, when he served
as Hinds' CIT director. I think Fred
thrived in that position, where he
could serve as a guide and mentor
to yet another group of up and
coming Scouts - within a day of
meeting his new crew, Fred would introduce
all of his Scouts to me by name
and background. He was a Scouter and
Teacher through and through!
~ Frank Maguire
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