Ne Pah Win Lodge 161 (1939-1951)

In 1939, Piedmont Area Council Scout Executive Homer Fulton Cotey, who had recently transferred from Vicksburg, Mississippi to Lynchburg, encouraged the creation of a local lodge of the Order of the Arrow, the Boy Scouts’ honor society that had been created on Treasure Island in the Delaware River in 1915. On July 7, 1939, Ne-Pah-Win Lodge No. 161 of the Order of the Arrow was chartered at Camp Tye Brook. (The lodge’s name was translated as “sleeping Indian,” and fell out of favor with members of the lodge, who changed its moniker to Koo Koo Ku Hoo “wise bird of the forest” in 1952.) Charter members of the lodge included Abe Craddock, Maynard Duvall, Carey Jones, Jimmy Jones, Lloyd Jordan, Billy McIntosh, Beverly McVeigh, Bob Ramsey, Fred Showalter, Jr. (all of Lynchburg), James Walker of Danville, and Jack Walker of Bedford. One of the primary missions of the Order of the Arrow is to provide service to the local council’s camp, and the new lodge executed several service projects including adding handrails to the camp’s foot bridges and conducting reforestation activities.