The Troop 133 Story
The Troop 133 Story told by Everet Smith and updated by Bob Zetzl
Cliff Hirschman was the founder of Troop 133 and its first scoutmaster. Around ten years earlier, in 1928, he had founded Troop 90 (in which Paul Isley was a Scout) at the Evangelical Church, 56th Street and Broadway. Then, after moving to 62nd Street near John Strange Elementary School, he found another void in Scouting that he decided to fill. First, there were meetings with a few boys over cookies and milk at his home, probably in late 1939. The group gradually enlarged and transferred to the school, and finally on April 6, 1940, the new troop was chartered. Hirschman was named Scoutmaster in the charter papers, and Paul Isley Assistant Scoutmaster.
A note from a former Scout John Bodenhamer. was found shortly after his death in 2021. John was 96 years old and died July 3, 2021. During the preparations for his funeral, this quote was found in his notes. “When I was 12 (1936) about 8 or 9 of us boys started Boy Scout Troop #133 which became a very large Troop at John Strange School. We had a great Scoutmaster, Paul Isley.”
We have a debate as to when the troop was founded. Was it in 1936 as suggested in the notes of John Bodenhamer? Was it when Hirschman first met with his group of prospective scouts? Was it when they first decided to form a troop? Was it when the troop was formally chartered? We have no records of the earlier dates, and in any event BSA National Headquarters calculates our tenure from the chartering date; so officially we were founded April 6, 1940.
How did the troop get its number? According to Mrs. Hirschman (in a letter in our files), “All decided that since (John Strange) School was so close to Highway 13, that 13 would be a good number for the troop – then the three was added for the three points on the official Scout badge.” The difficulty with this story is that no one seems to remember a time when Highway 13 was anywhere near JohnStrangeSchool. Hirschman himself is reported to have made a talk to the troop in which he said that the thirteen came from the thirteen steps on the pyramid and the thirteen stars on the shield on the back of the dollar bill. From Clarence Pence (a deceased ASM) comes another Hirschman story: that when he bought roses for his wife, he always bought a baker’s dozen (thirteen), and so he chose that number as a part of the troop number. Is it possible that the number was simply a number assigned by Council headquarters when the troop was chartered? We shall probably never know.
World War II produced a number of changes in the scoutmaster position. In 1942, two years after the troop’s founding, Hirschman volunteered for service in the navy, and Isley succeeded him. A year later, he too was gone – into the army. There followed three years under Isidor Cole, and in 1946 Isley returned to the troop and to the scoutmaster slot. In 1951 and 1952 he was again absent from the troop to be Advisor to Explorer Post 133, and his place was taken by Paul Carson in ’51 and by Russ Hood in ’52. Isley returned as Scoutmaster in 1953 and remained in that role until his retirement to Scoutmaster Emeritus in 1986, at which time John F. Harkey took over the reins. Harkey retired in 1988, and was succeeded by Bob Zetzl who served until 1994 when family illness forced him to turn over the troop to ASM Mike Buchanan. Glen Stanley took over the following year and, due to career relocation to NJ, was succeeded by Chris Seigel in 1996. James Barnett took over in 2001 and passed the office to David Wood who in turn ceded the office to our current Scoutmaster, Chuck Fairchild in 2007. Each of these men injected his personality into troop life and its program.
The troop initially met in Hirschman’s basement, which it rapidly outgrew, then in a realtor’s office in Rolling Ridge (near Kessler and Allisonville), and then moved to the John Strange gymnasium. For a number of years, it was in and out of there, at the whim of the school trustee. Then, in 1958, someone discovered that the construction shed at the new Glendale Shopping Center had outlived its usefulness and was about to be torn down. Under the leadership of Ralph Brandt and Hugh Frey, steps were taken to have the building donated to us, then moved and installed in its present location. This was a monumental job. The building was so long it had to be cut in two to be moved. It was rolled down Kessler Boulevard to Olney, then, north on Olney, where the entire troop turned out to remove the mailboxes along the side of the street and replace them after the building passed. A concrete block foundation was laid at the new location, and the building was set in place and put back together. The move cost a great deal of money and effort, but with everyone pulling together, the job got done and the building has been our home ever since. It has also seen a valuable resource for many other community organizations.
From almost the beginning our troop was heavily involved in all kinds of scouting activities. We camped regularly and went to summer camp each year as we still do. We attended camporees and took part in Firecrafter and, since 1973, in the Order of the Arrow. We have had scouts at every National Jamboree except the first one (which was in 1937, before we were chartered as a troop). In 1950 we sent fifteen boys to the second National Jamboree in Gettysburg, the only time this has been permitted. We have a flag and a memento autographed by VP Richard Nixon to commemorate the 1969 National Jamboree. Philmont, the National Scout Seabase in Florida and both the Maine and Minnesota Canoe Bases have hosted us as well. We have camped in twenty-three states and three countries. Other campsites of note include the infields of both the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY. We have, with rare exceptions, had a campout every month of the school year, which is our scouting year. The troop has, in other words, been very active. It wasn’t, however, until the late 70’s that John Harkey coined the slogan, “The Action Troop” for us. That slogan we now proudly display wherever we go.
Troop 133 has had two great strengths: First, it has been able to attract a steady parade of enthusiastic boys. Second, under the enlightened leadership of Paul Isley, it has been able to attract and retain an extraordinary number of interested, dedicated, and loyal adult leaders.
In the 60’s, Jim Holt came along to give extra stimulus to the camping program. Under Jim, we hiked on every campout where there was a trail that could be hiked. The story is told that about noon on one of these, the Tulip Tree Trace, a couple of young scouts showed up with blisters on their feet and wanted to quit. After examining the blisters, Jim told the, ‘OK, you can ride back to camp, but you will spend the afternoon writing me a 500-word essay on the proper care of the feet.” The boys got their ride back to camp, but no one remembers any other such cases. Apparently there are worse things than blisters. Jim was with us until his untimely death in 1971. On March 4, 1973, we dedicated our meeting place to him and renamed it the “James A. Holt Community House.” In 1980, after Cliff Hirschman’s death, we named one of the rooms the “J. Clifton Hirschman Room” in his honor.
About the time Jim Holt was beginning to phase out, we acquired John Harkey, who gave even greater emphasis to our camping program. We went from a horse trailer for carrying our camping gear to a large custom-built horse trailer, then to a surplus army truck which was our first “Chiquita”, named for its yellow color, and finally to a full-blown tractor-trailer. All of this was necessary because during these years we had grown from a large troop to a huge troop – over 160 scouts in the early ‘70s plus registered adults. In 1973, 42 of our boys were Eagle Scouts, all active in the troop at the same time! This surely must be a record, although we have not checked it out.
Around 1970, John Harkey and Bob Hayes came up with a fundraising program of selling fertilizer and trash bags that paved the way for some truly extraordinary ventures for the troop. First, there were the so-called “Mystery-History” trips at teachers’ convention time in October, in which the troop set out on a Wednesday evening for an unknown destination and wound up at some place of historic interest. The area was explored until Sunday. These trips took us all over the country – to Boston for the Bicentennial; to Colonial Williamsburg; to Valley Forge and Philadelphia; to Stone Mountain, GA; to the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Detroit; to Florida for the National Sea Base and Key West, Cape Canaveral, Disney World and Busch Gardens; to the World’s Fair in Knoxville and the Shiloh Battlefield in Tennessee; to New Mexico to see Alamogordo, Taos and Philmont; and to Los Angeles where we camped in the Long Beach Naval Station and explored Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, the Queen Mary, Disney World and Tiger Airlines maintenance hangers and sat in the cockpit of a 747 airliner. Other trips included Gilwell Park, the home of Scouting in England in ’72 and ‘78, and to Hawaii in ’79 where we pitched our tents at CampPupukea on the northern tip of Oahu. All of these trips were planned and executed by John Harkey, to whom we owe a heavy debt of gratitude. Under his watch we also acquired a dozen canoes and a thirty foot tepee, an item that is quite impressive in the campsite.
The troop experienced a number of changes in the ‘80s. Demographics, societal changes and the explosion of other youth activities took their toll. Fertilizer sales were dropped and declining enrollment forced us, by the end of Mr. Harkey’s tenure to downsize. Chiquita became too expensive to operate and was replaced by a used yellow Ryder box van which served us well for well over a decade. The troop was now down to two patrols but we still managed to celebrate our 50th anniversary in 1990 by returning for a third time to GilwellPark. Besides meeting the Chief Scout of the United Kingdom we took in the sights of London and environs including Stonehenge, Salisbury Cathedral where the Magna Carta is exhibited, Canterbury Cathedral and Roman excavations, Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, changing of the guard at Hampton Court, Greenwich Observatory, Tower of London and the Crown Jewels. Of particular interest to the boys was the Museum of Torture and, of course, the Hard Rock Cafe.
During these years we joined the Council’s popcorn program and began selling Christmas greenery. These funds allowed us to make two major renovations to our beloved Scout Hut and to update some of our camping equipment. These years also saw some unusual camping experiences. At Belzer we did tent camping when the overnight temperature sank to minus ten degrees with no one get frostbite. Quite an achievement! We also camped next to a runway at Wright-Patterson AFB where we thought the planes were coming through our tents all night as they were landing.
Each succeeding scoutmaster left his legacy and/or change: Mr. Zetzl for starting the tradition of Summer Camp at Ransburg; Mr. Buchanan for his humor, good will and his ‘Nate the Snake’ campfire story; Mr. Stanley for showing that it is possible to roast a chicken in your backpack while you are on a hike; Mr Seigel for his quiet leadership and introduction of the ‘Roses & Thorns’ tradition at the end of each campout; Mr. Barnett for emphasizing disabilities awareness; Mr. Wood for making us a truly ‘boy-led’ troop and Mr. Fairchild for bringing his unbridled enthusiasm, love of backpacking, bicycling and humor (hydrogen atom). He has also managed the unprecedented growth in membership (more than doubling) these last few years.
The boys decided to hold an annual Haunted House for the children of the neighborhood to coincide with the Fall Hoedown sponsored by the John Strange PTO. Our scouts divided the meeting room into smaller areas with each patrol in charge of some appropriate spooky or scary display. We also began other service endeavors. The 500 Festival Parade, Scouting for Food and the Memorial Day flag ceremony for veterans at Our Lady of Peace Cemetery are annual events along with other civic good-turn deeds.
Some other interesting facts and figures are revealed as one peruses the various documents in the troop archives. We began our journey in the Central Indiana Council, Northstar District which evolved into the North District and finally, in 1951, to our present Northeast District. At that time many of our scouts still had Rural Route addresses. Our roster peaked at 168 scouts in the late 1970s. Our garage was built in the late ‘60s and was later expanded to its present size. Snoopy became our mascot and regularly reported the troop news. The earliest edition we’ve found is dated 1968. As the troop has aged – we are now the second oldest troop in the Northeast District – we have begun to see legacy scouts. Second and third generation families are becoming more common. Fathers, sons and now grandsons are sharing the rich tradition of the Troop133 program. Over the years we have had many two-scout and even three-scout families, some with multiple Eagle Scouts. A record was set in 1993 when the Fox family became the first to celebrate its fourth Eagle Scout Court of Honor a milestone about to be tied by the Fairchild family.
Our troop can take pride in its achievements over the years. It has been made possible by the quality and dedication of our scouts and their leaders. As of 2021 we have 291 Eagle Scouts, close to 200 Firecrafters and a like number of Order of the Arrow members. 123 have become Voyageurs. We have scouts going to White Stag training every year. Many of our scouts have held leadership positions in all these organizations as well as at National BSA facilities. Our camping program is second to none. In recent years, in addition to annual summer camp we have had at least one type of high adventure program. Philmont and AerobusLake in Ontario, Canada have been repeat venues with Colorado mountain climbing coming on strong. The last trip saw our scouts scaling four of the five 14,000 foot peaks. Of our leaders, 20 have received the Northeast District Award of Merit, 23 proudly wear the beads of Wood Badge and 13 have been awarded the Silver Beaver, the highest award conferred by the Crossroads of America Council. Two of our leaders have been singled out for outstanding service by our governor, one named a Sagamore of the Wabash and the other a Distinguished Hoosier. Recognition for outstanding service to Scouting brought the Bronze Pelican Catholic award and the International Scouting Award to two others.
So . . . . we have had many, many good years. Productive years. During our 75th anniversary a multiple former troop 133 Scouts and Scouters attended an anniversary celebration with Troop 133 Eagle Scout David Carter serving as the keynote speaker to talk about how his experiences in Troop 133 have been useful in his life. His talk included details of how his Scouting skills were an important part of being able to climb to the top of Mount Everest.
As we head on to the 100th milestone we continue to build on our past. It cannot happen, however, without the continued support of all in the Troop 133 family. Time, talent and treasure are all necessary for a vibrant future. May we and all our successors contribute to keep the Troop 133 tradition of guiding young boys into responsible adults and leaders strong. If all encourage, push, prod and lead by example, the legacy of “The Action Troop” will continue to promote the goals and ideals of Lord Baden Powell and his scouting movement among the boys of our community.
Everet Smith history revised and updated by Bob Zetzl and Jerry Phillips
Last Update July 7, 2021