Arrowmen took many paths to get to NOAC 2015
By Josh Kline
Arrowmen from across the nation have arrived at MSU to celebrate. While most of this week’s attention is focused on the excitement in Michigan, the journey for most Arrowmen truly began with their travel to the conference. As the saying goes, the journey is often as important as the destination and several Arrowmen have interesting stories about their trip here.
Liam Fender and Gareth Deakes, two youth Arrowmen from Tonkawa Lodge in Austin, Texas traveled over 1,300 miles by bus with their contingent. Among their several exciting stops was the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri and the U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago, Illinois, where they watched a baseball game between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees on Saturday. Liam is excited about the American Indian activities this week, especially a broach-making class he will be taking.
Greg Whitford from Albuquerque, New Mexico is a member of Yah-Tah-Hey-Si-Kess Lodge, whose contingent split into two separate traveling groups. One group, which Greg called the “long” group, first flew to Buffalo, New York and then drove to Michigan along a scenic route, making several stops along the way. They first stopped at Niagara Falls, where they saw the U.S. and Canadian sides of the famous landmark. In Ohio the contingent visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and the Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky.
Perhaps the Arrowman who travelled the most to get here is David Katz of Malibu Lodge in California. Last week, he traveled with his local troop to the Bahamas where he spent his time scuba diving in the open waters. At the end of the trip he flew back to Malibu. After only one day of rest David then joined his lodge on their journey by air to Michigan. He traveled almost 5,000 miles in three days.
Jude Sauvo of Totanhan Nakaha Lodge in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota and Wisconsin traveled by bus all night to reach the conference. While some might view a long road trip as unpleasant, the lodge maintained their cheerful spirits by naming their buses after famous cartoon characters such as Rocky, Bullwinkle, Mr. Peabody and Sherman. The passengers of the Bullwinkle bus even wore moose antlers on their hats to honor their vehicle’s namesake.
Although our guests from across the country and world have used numerous means of transportation, each Arrowman’s end destination was the same – NOAC 2015.