Headlines from the hills

   Preparations are underway for the upcoming maple syrup season. Work days will be held on Saturdays from now on. Whether running sap lines, constructing platforms or cleaning tanks, we have a job for you! Please make plans to help us out.
   Unfortunately, someone cut the cable holding the U.S. flag at Pioneer Point. We need someone with great climbing skills to shinny up the flagpole and run a rope through the eyelet to replace the cable. If you can help, please let Dan or Dana know…and thank you!
   By now, you should have received your 2010 Camp Tuscazoar Events Calendar. You didn’t get one? Well, join the Camp Tuscazoar Foundation and a calendar will automatically show up in your mailbox. For the price of a membership, you can make certain you don’t miss important dates. Please continue to patronize our advertisers. If someone mentions that they want to advertise next year, let us know.

Camp mineral rights secured

   The Camp Tuscazoar Foundation recently acquired most of the mineral rights under the camp. Twenty years ago, Foundation attorney Dave Tschantz began examining the deeds for the original camp property. Several of these deeds contained reservations for certain mineral rights. However, the rights reserved in those deeds varied. For example, the rights reserved in the deed given by John L. Lab to the McKinley Area Council, BSA in 1928 for 81 acres (containing the ranger’s house, parking lot and Starvation Gulch) reserved all mineral rights to the Tuscarawas Coal & Iron Company. The deed given to the council by George W. Markley in 1937 for 336 acres (all the land south of Keppler Lodge) reserved oil and gas rights to the Tuscarawas Mineral Land Company.
   Further research disclosed that the Tuscarawas Coal & Iron Company had been dissolved, but that its assets, including its mineral rights interests, were conveyed to the Tuscarawas Mineral Land Company in 1908. The Tuscarawas Mineral Land Company was also shut down and its assets, including all the mineral rights interests, were conveyed to its president, George W. Markley, in 1931. This also applied to the deed given to the scouts in 1937. Thus, all mineral rights interests under the camp ended up in the hands of Mr. Markley by 1937.
   Eventually, Mr. Markley formed a trust to benefit his heirs, and all these rights were included in that trust, which was administered by the Reeves Bank, now the Huntington Trust Company, in Dover.
   The Foundation contacted the Huntington Trust Company to discuss options for conveying these rights to the Foundation. These discussions began in 1991after Mr. and Mrs. Kimble donated 110 acres of the camp to the Foundation. Recently, the following arrangement was finalized: the Trust would accept a $5,000 donation by Mrs. Kimble for the oil and gas rights south of Keppler Lodge, and another $5,000 to be paid by the Foundation out of timber sales, for all the mineral rights, except the oil and gas, in several areas of the northern part of the camp. An independent evaluation, the cost of which was also donated, verified that the coal alone in that area was worth over $200,000 in royalties to the owner of the mineral rights. Thus, the

Foundation would have to pay something for those rights - an outright donation was not possible for the Trust. Because this area includes Pioneer Point and the OA and Pipestone circles, the Foundation cannot recover the coal. This purchase protects the camp from future mining that would destroy the beauty of the Netawatwes Valley and Pioneer Point.
   With this purchase completed, the only mineral rights under the camp still not in Foundation hands are oil and gas rights under Pioneer Point and the parking lot/museum/Ranger’s house area. Those rights are under lease and the Trust is receiving royalties from the production of several gas wells near the camp. Since those royalties are significant, the Trust is unable to donate them to the Foundation, and the Foundation cannot afford to purchase them, so these rights will remain in the hands of the Trust for now.
   Our thanks to the Kimble family for their generosity in obtaining these rights to protect the camp; Buckeye Mineral Services, Inc. for donating the evaluation of the minerals under the northern part of the camp; and the Huntington Trust Company for their patience, cooperation and willingness to put this conveyance together.

Consider Tuscazoar items this Christmas

   Now is the time to think about your Christmas shopping this year. Would the Scouter in your life love a bottle of Camp Tuscazoar Maple Syrup? Bottles can be purchased in a gift basket or in a Christmas bag suitable for gift giving.
   Also, a new special has just been added. Since we will mark our 90th anniversary celebration with a special series of camp patches next year, now is the time to add the entire 75th anniversary Camp Tuscazoar patch set to your collection. This framed set will be on sale only during 2010 for a LOW price of $15 each. Give us a call and place your order as there is a limited supply of this item.

New area created near Kimble Hall for commemorative bricks

   The front of the camp dining hall, Kimble Hall, has been reworked and the existing commemorative bricks have been re-installed. Space is now available for many new commemorative bricks.
   If you would like to purchase a brick to honor an individual or commemorate an event, please use our Buy-A-Brick brochure. A copy of the Buy-A-Brick brochure can be viewed on the camp website at http://www.tuscazoar.org/Buy_a_Brick_brochure.pdf. Your contribution of $30 per brick will provide much-needed funds for Camp Tuscazoar's camping facilities...and your name will be permanently etched on your very own brick.
   Our thanks to those who donated materials and labor for this project. If you have a tamper that we could use to finish the project, please let us know.

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