Portal:Scouting/Selected biography archive/2008

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• Jan 31, 2008 - Edward Michael Law Yone (born February 5, 1911 at Kamaing, Myitkyina District (now Kachin State), Burma). At 16 he went to work as a clerk in the Burma-China border frontier service. He joined the Burma Railways in 1930 as a probationer and by 1938 was in charge of the rates and commercial section, traveling in that year over the recently constructed Burma Road to survey the route proposed for linking the Burma and Yunnan-Indochina Railways. Law Yone was one of the very first recipients of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts, in 1959. Law Yone was a member of the Executive Committee of the Union of Burma Boy Scouts, and was an active promoter of Scouting, taking the lead in fundraising activities and traveling to international Scouting meetings.

• Feb 29, 2008 - Robert J. Mazzuca (b. 1947) is the Chief Scout Executive of the Boy Scouts of America. He is the eleventh person to hold that position, with his term starting in 2007. Mazzuca first became involved in Scouting as a boy, joining Boy Scout Troop 28 (now 428) and earned the rank of Eagle Scout in 1964. While a Scout he attended Camp Pico Blanco of the Monterey Bay Area Council for four summers, including two as staff. Mazzuca was inducted into the Order of the Arrow as a member of Esselen Lodge. In 1970, Mazzuca received a bachelor of arts in history from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. Mazzuca began his Scouting professional career in 1971 in Modesto, California as a district executive and as an Exploring executive. He became the Exploring director in Sacramento in 1975 and rose to the positions of field director and the director of field service. In 1983, Mazzuca became the Scout executive in Stockton, California. He later served as an area director in the Western Region before returning to Sacramento as the Scout executive. In 1992 he became the assistant regional director for the Southern Region and in 1995 he became the Scout executive of the Greater Pittsburgh Council. In 2005, he became the national director of the development group at the National Council and in 2006 became the assistant Chief Scout Executive. Mazzuca is a lifetime member of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting.

• Mar 31, 2008 - Lieutenant Colonel David Cossgrove served in the South African War with Robert Baden-Powell, founder of Scouts and Guides in the United Kingdom. Cossgrove took Baden-Powell's ideas back to New Zealand with him and began Scouting and Peace Scouts in Christchurch.

• Apr 30, 2008 - Betty Clay was the daughter of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting. She herself was the holder of the Bronze Wolf from the World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) and the Silver Fish from the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS). She was active in Scouting and Guiding throughout her life. She married Gervas Clay in 1936 and lived in Northern Rhodesia until 1964 when both moved to England. She was a cub scout leader and also an active Guider eventually becoming Colony Commissioner for Guides. When they moved to England she was President of the South West Region for the Guide Association from 1970-1991. In 1978 she was appointed a vice-president of the Guide Association. In 1985 she became a vice-president of the Scout Association.

• May 31, 2008 - William D. Boyce (1858–1929), was an American newspaper man and entrepreneur, best known today for founding the Boy Scouts of America and the Lone Scouts of America. By the early 20th century, Boyce was a multi-millionaire. He had traveled the world and lived his dream, but, at 51, Boyce grew weary of financial success and turned his attention to philanthropy. He turned to his childhood as a resource, but could not find the answer until a fateful stop to England while en route to what became a failed photographic expedition to Africa and met the famous Unknown Scout.

• Jun 30, 2008 - Steve Fossett (April 22, 1944 – missing September 3, 2007, declared legally dead February 15, 2008) was an American aviator, sailor, and adventurer who became the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in a balloon. He was also a member of the World Scout Committee and Distinguished Eagle Scout Award recipient. He made his fortune in the financial services industry and was best known for many world records, including five nonstop circumnavigations of the Earth: as a long-distance solo balloonist, as a sailor, and as a solo flight fixed-wing aircraft pilot. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, Fossett set 116 records in five different sports, 60 of which still stand. Fossett was reported missing after the plane he was flying over the Nevada desert failed to return. Despite a month of searches by the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) and others, Fossett could not be found, and the search by CAP was called off on October 2, 2007. However, privately-funded and directed search efforts continued. On November 2, 2007, Peggy Fossett and Dick Rutan accepted the Spread Wings Award in Steve Fossett's behalf at the 2007 Spreading Wings Gala, Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, Denver, Colorado. On November 26, 2007, Fossett's wife requested that Fossett be declared legally dead.

• Jul 31, 2008 - Jan van Hoof (Nijmegen, 7 August 1922 - Nijmegen, 19 September 1944) was a member of the Dutch resistance. Prior to World War II he was a Rover Scout. After the war began he made maps of the area he lived in. While guiding American troops through Nijmegen during Operation Market Garden, he was executed by the German Army.

• Aug 31, 2008 - Terry Sanford was an American lawyer and politician from North Carolina. He served as a paratrooper in World War II and became the Governor of North Carolina and US Senator. He is noted as promoting rights of minorities, education, and leader of the New South. Sanford is a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award and gave great support and credit to the movement, saying it "probably saved my life in the war. Boys who had been Scouts or had been in the CCC knew how to look after themselves in the woods. ... What I learned in Scouts sustained me all my life; it helped me make decisions about what was best."

• Sep 30, 2008 - Elisabeth Gehrer (born May 11, 1942) is a Conservative Austrian politician. From 1995 until January 2007 Gehrer was Federal Minister of Education, Science and Culture, at first in grand coalition governments headed by Franz Vranitzky and Viktor Klima (both SPÖ), and, since 2000, in Wolfgang Schüssel's coalition government. Since 1999 she has also been vice party chairperson of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP). She became a primary school teacher in 1961 and continued teaching in small country schools until 1966. In 1964 she married Fritz Gehrer, moved to Bregenz, Vorarlberg and became a homemaker. The couple has three grown-up sons. Gehrer was a Scout leader, National Commissioner for Rangers of Pfadfinder und Pfadfinderinnen Österreichs and teamed Woodbadge trainings (i.e.1976 in Wasserspreng). Elisabeth Gehrer started her political career in 1980 as a regional politician in Bregenz. She remained in Vorarlberg in various political positions until her appointment as Federal Minister in 1995.

• Oct 31, 2008 - Henry Warington Smyth Baden-Powell, KC (3 February 1847-24 April 1921), known as Warington within the family, was Robert Baden-Powell's oldest brother. He was educated at St Paul's College where he graduated in 1857. Early in his career he qualified as a Master Mariner and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve. Interest in small boats led him to a fascination with canoes. In 1871, at the age of 24, he paddled and sailed a canoe on a cruise around the Baltic Sea that included stops in Germany, Denmark and Sweden as described in his book, Canoe Travelling, published in 1871. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society (F.R.G.S.). Robert Baden-Powell asked his brother Warington to head up the first specialized branch of the Boy Scouts. Warington Baden-Powell agreed, and Sea Scouting was officially organized in England in 1910. Warington then wrote the first official Sea Scout manual, Sea Scouting and Seamanship for Boys. The manual sold well and Sea Scouting flourished. Warington Baden-Powell was an early member and promoter of the Royal Canoe Club which he had joined in 1874. He developed the canoe as a specialised sailing vessel, and by the latter 1870s sailing canoes were taking part in organised racing, and providing keen amateur sport at reasonable cost at a time when yachting was an activity for the wealthy.

• Nov 30, 2008 - Pierre Joubert (June 27, 1910 - January 13, 2002) was a French illustrator. He was closely associated with the creation of Scouting and the popular look of Boy Scouts in France and Belgium, comparable to the American artist Norman Rockwell. Joubert was born in Paris. Joubert was a young Scout himself, and attended the École des arts appliqués in Paris. His first amateur drawings appeared in Scouts de France in 1926. He graduated to the magazine L'Illustration in 1927 through 1934, but continued increasingly to focus on Scout-centered art in Scouting publications. Joubert also was an illustrator of boys' adventure novels, particularly the Signe de Piste (Trail Sign) line (where he works with René Follet). The style of Joubert's illustrations depicted idealized boys experiencing the glories of Scouting and kammaradeschaft. Joubert is considered, owing to his eye for trend and his mass-market exposure, to have had reflective influence on boy-culture in France from the 1930s until the close of the 1960s.

• Dec 31, 2008 - Georges Prosper Remi (22 May 1907 - 3 March 1983), better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. "Hergé" (French pronunciation: [ɛʀʒe]) is the French pronunciation of "RG", his initials reversed. His best known and most substantial work is The Adventures of Tintin, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, which left the twenty-fourth Tintin adventure Tintin and Alph-art unfinished. His work remains a strong influence on comics, particularly in Europe. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003. The notable qualities of the Tintin stories include their vivid humanism, a realistic feel produced by meticulous and wide ranging research, and Hergé's ligne claire drawing style. Adult readers enjoy the many satirical references to the history and politics of the 20th century. The Blue Lotus, for example, was inspired by the Mukden incident that led to the Chinese-Japanese War of 1934. King Ottokar's Sceptre can be read against the background of Hitler's Anschluss; whilst later albums such as The Calculus Affair depict the Cold War. Hergé has become one of the most famous Belgians worldwide and Tintin is still an international success. Hergé's work was heavily influenced by the ethics of the Scouting movement, as well as the early travel experiences he made with the Scout association.