‘We did it!’: Area girls embrace opportunity

Ava Phan, 14, knelt and pushed a stake into the damp earth in the dark. Her younger sister, Remy, 12, tried to snap a tentpole into place, her hands guided by the light of a headlamp. Their lopsided tent began to take shape.

It was chilly and too cloudy to see stars. The sisters didn’t complain. Remy had heard boys at school talk about camping trips. Now she was making a memory of her own on the ranch 60 miles northwest of Houston.

A roadside sign marked the destination: Boy Scout Camp.

Seventeen months earlier, Boy Scouts of America announced it would open its signature Cub and Boy Scout programs to girls. The organization says the decision grew from requests from scouting families.

Ava and Remy’s Troop 1314 became official Feb. 1, the first day possible. They were among 234 Houston-area girls who joined in the first five weeks, and nearly 10,000 nationwide. Required to be single-gender, the troops are part of a program called Scouts BSA, formerly known as Boy Scouts.

Reaction to the idea was mixed. Supporters argued girls were already involved in the Boy Scouts organization, hanging around unofficially during Cub Scouts or joining co-ed programs for older teens. BSA in recent years had also allowed transgender and gay scouts.

Opponents didn’t want girls to abandon Girl Scouts, a program that started for their benefit. On Nov. 6, 2018, Girl Scouts filed suit to protect its brand. The conflict highlighted the role of single-gender organizations founded more than 100 years ago, when ideas about how girls and boys ought to be were much different.

A few of the girls in Troop 1314 saw people grow annoyed when they tried to sell Scouts BSA coupon books rather than Girl Scout cookies. But that didn’t deter them.

On this evening, March 1, the girls were on their second official campout, an annual event called Camporee. It featured competition among troops in their district; they were the only girl troop there.

In Scouts BSA, they saw a chance to learn leadership, science and outdoor skills. Remy and Ava’s dad urged them to break the glass ceiling. They shared a philosophy Remy voiced: “If boys can do it, then girls can, too.”

They snapped the tent clips to the poles.

“Look,” Ava said, “we did it!”

‘You ready?’

Ten days earlier, 10 girls stood around a square table, folded down their thumbs and pinkies and recited the Pledge of Allegiance with a three-finger salute. They held the same three fingers up, elbows bent at right angles, and recited the Scout Oath and Law.

These were the same rituals their brothers knew, repeated in new tones.

Remy, as senior patrol leader, guided the meeting. She was elected with a speech on how the girls should strive to be the first Eagle Scouts, the highest rank. Sometimes shy, she thought the leadership role might help with her stage fright.

Scoutmaster Todd Thrash, 44, gave Remy a discreet thumbs-up. The girls might eventually open meetings with a color guard. For now, Thrash was proud Remy started without prompting. She had no experienced scouts to learn from.

As Thrash put it: “We’re kind of at the epicenter of change right now.”

For nearly a year Thrash had been planning for this troop while also helping Venture, Sea and Boy Scout groups. His son, like him, was an Eagle Scout. His 12-year-old daughter, Izzy, unimpressed by her Girl Scout troop’s recent tea party, wanted to pursue the same goal.

Thrash intended to find Izzy a troop. But Vivien Liu, 51, wanted him to start one. Liu had remained Cubmaster after her son moved to Boy Scouts so her younger daughter, Elizabeth-Grace, 12, could tag along, doing archery, shooting BB guns and canoeing. “I’m like, ‘Todd! Let’s do this!’ ” Liu recalled.

They gathered the evening of Feb. 19 for their weekly meeting in a Scout house in Bellaire. It was across the street from Bellaire United Methodist Church, their sponsor, which ultimately gave the go-ahead for this girl troop.

As BSA saw it, the program was single-gender before and that worked. Aside from special events such as Camporee, interaction between girl and boy troops was to be limited at most to opening and closing meetings together. Scouts BSA boys meet there Mondays. On Tuesdays, it belongs to the girls. (Three Girl Scout troops meet at the church.)

Michelle Dilday, 40, who works for the Sam Houston Area Council, walked to the front of the room. This was her second presentation of a troop charter to girls.

Half of the girls wore Scouts BSA uniforms, the traditional khaki button-down shirts and olive green pants, tailored for them. “BSA,” instead of Boy Scouts of America, was stitched on the shirts. Troop patches displayed 2019 as their founding year.

Dilday told them what she told the boys: Prepare for burned dinners; expect ants in the tent; and help each other. “So, you ready?” Dilday asked, turning to Remy.

Memorabilia from 60 years covered the Scout House walls. Dilday handed over the charter, a piece of history for the girls to hang.

Boys vs. girls

Madeline Gaiser, 13, screamed as she dangled between three sticks of fresh-cut bamboo, lashed in a triangle shape by her fellow scouts, who didn’t really know how to lash.

Her 42-year-old dad, Michael, an Eagle Scout, encouraged them: “Do your best!”

“Let’s go!” shouted Madeline, eager to win.

It was the morning of March 2 at the girls’ Camporee competition. Troop 1314 was divided into its two patrols, blue phoenix and flaming narwhal, the latter named for a whale-like animal, with a horn, that spits fire from its spout. The name fit. These girls were silly, but fierce.

In Katy, Troop 820 — a number that pays homage to August 1920, when women earned the right to vote — named their patrol for Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut in space. They, too, were pioneers, trying something that wasn’t considered appropriate for them before.

The blue phoenix patrol hurriedly carried Madeline across the wet grass. She got out of the bamboo triangle and Maggie Schwierking, 15, wearing her powder-blue troop T-shirt and lime green Camporee neckerchief, jumped on her back. Madeline rushed back uphill, her ponytail bouncing,

Maggie, a high school freshman, was the oldest in the troop and among those worried people would think she was boyish if she joined Scouts BSA. She was also a Girl Scout and sister of Eagle Scouts, as were several of the others. She wanted new experiences.

When Maggie was younger, her dad, Jim Schwierking, 50, recalled giving Maggie a copy of “Dangerous Book for Girls,” which was about climbing trees and skipping stones, things that were hardly dangerous.

What they were doing now were called first aid carries, meant to be used if a scout was injured, but which also served as a handy relay. These were outlined in the girls’ scout books, which matched those of the boys, except that they had pictures of girls.

It was these books that drew many to the program. Some parents considered Boy Scouts more rigorous and strict, and Girl Scouts too dependent on the troop leaders’ interpretation.

As local Girl Scouts of America leaders see it, people long associated their program with cookies, camping and crafts. They argue their girl-led program is also focused on science and math and evolving to modern challenges and needs — with the added benefit of being all about girls.

When the blue phoenix patrol reached the finish, Madeline’s mom, Stephanie, 42, recorded their first aid carry relay time: 3 minutes, 57 seconds. Stephanie re-met Madeline’s dad when they were Explorer Scouts. Still, she and others were glad to know the Scouts BSA troops were single-gender.

The girls interacted cautiously with the boys. Troop 1314 this weekend faced five troops, including 498, a Vietnamese troop that considered scouting a family activity. “We’re all here, as scout brothers, and sisters,” said Linda Le, with Troop 498, at the opening flag ceremony. (Around the world, girls are also involved in scouting.)

That morning, boys from their brother troop, 222, hauled over a Dutch oven, offering their leftover breakfast of layered hash browns, eggs, sausage, biscuits and cheese.

“We’re glad to have you guys,” Troop 222 Scoutmaster Shane Kimzey, 49, told the girls, as they arrived to his activity. He thought it important they feel welcomed, though the boys seemed to see the girls’ presence as a non-event.

One of Kimzey’s scouts, 15-year-old Yvan Martinez, had a 13-year-old sister in Troop 1314, Alani. Yvan was confused at first by why she wanted to join, since she had Girl Scouts. But today it seemed normal for her to be here.

Tomahawk toss

Alani, with her sweatshirt sleeves pulled up, hurled atomahawk at a target, their last challenge before lunch. She’d been told her brother stuck two blades.

“So close!” called 10-year-old Christina McClelland.

Christina officially joined Troop 1314 six days before, when she graduated, smiling, in a sunny Sunday afternoon ceremony from Cub Scouts to Scouts BSA. Her mom, Lesley McClelland, 35, told her she was a role model. “You’re making history,” one of the Troop 1314 girls had said.

When Cub Scouts in the Houston area opened to girls in August, Christina found her place. Girl Scouts bored her with indoor arts and crafts. With Pack 1020, she got to whittle and start campfires. Her options for which troop to join next were limited — there were more than 500 boy troops around Houston and, as of March 8, only 26 troops for girls — but she was excited for all she would do now in Troop 1314.

“It’s a place to be free, be who you are,” Christina said. “It’s for adventurous girls, and boys, who want to learn something new.”

Yes, some aspects were different. One troop leader had already realized she was going to have to find a way to talk to the girls about handling menstruation in the woods.

For Boy Scouts of America, the point of the change was that girls now had a choice.

Maggie sunk two blades into the wood.

That afternoon: The 11 girls’ bodies bumped against each other as they raced forward, shuffling, in a single-file line, within a giant loop of taped-together newspaper. “Right, left, right, left, right,” Christina called.

Victoria Henske, 12, crouched, one knee to the ground, tucked her hair behind her ears, and blew a giant puff of flour from a bowl, filling the air around her safety-goggle-protected face.

“Ladies first!” an adult yelled as Christina beat out a boy to the water cooler and opened her mouth.

The boys had taken off their shirts. The girls sprinted to their tents for extra layers to strip off and drape end-to-end on the ground. They lay down, Elizabeth-Grace’s hands grabbing for Izzy’s, Izzy’s toes touching Victoria’s, and Victoria’s arm resting against Remy’s leg.

Remy was smiling, her head on Madeline’s thigh.

Dinnertime

Troop 1314 won every relay that afternoon, with stamps on the hand to prove it — a blue star, a yellow pencil, a pink smudge, a purple smiley face, a pink “Well done!”

A campfire with skits, songs and ceremony was planned for that night. They were going to make Thrash’s favorite chocolate cherry cobbler for the Dutch oven contest.

They didn’t know it yet, but between all the days’ games, they were in third place.

Now it was dinnertime.

Not feeling well, Carolyn Ray, 12, sank into a lime green camping chair. She talked Remy and Ava through the steps for making the flaming narwhal’s sloppy joes. She had practiced cooking them at home a few days earlier where her mom, a principal at an architecture firm, knew all the challenges women pursuing careers faced.

“Put your fingers like this, like a spider,” Carolyn said to Remy, curling her fingers to demonstrate how to chop with a knife.

Maggie and Christina warmed tortillas and sliced avocados for the blue phoenix patrol’s fajitas. “Do you know how to cut an avocado?” Maggie asked. “I’m going to wing it,” Christina said.

Carolyn stood to pour oil on the diced onion, sizzling. Ava squeezed in ground beef from a plastic sleeve with her bare hands.

“The camp life is never clean,” Christina said.

“A scout is clean,” Maggie corrected.

In went a can of tomato sauce, some water, tomato paste.

Alani’s dad reported the Troop 222 boys were making lasagna. Her mother was cooking with the Troop 1314 adults. The girls were bringing more parents into scouting: some moms were more comfortable helping with their daughters, and fathers didn’t necessarily have sons.

Christina wished she could live the rest of her life on this ranch.

“Or at least we could have a week here,” she imagined aloud. “Yes, that would be good.”

No one knows if this program for girls will be sustainable. Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910. The girls were one month in.

Christina’s feet hurt. Maggie had ablister. Victoria was sick. Even Thrash admitted to pain in his ankles.

The temperature dropped with the setting sun. The wind picked up. That night, it was forecast to rain.

Carolyn, in her camping chair, appeared asleep. The scouts worried she was dehydrated.

Remy patted her awake. The sloppy joes were about ready, and she needed to eat.

They took their leftovers to the boys. emily.foxhall@chron.com twitter.com/emfoxhall