My name is Justin King, and I have been involved in scouting for a very long time. I started back at the ripe old age of five! Yes five, as a tiger cub with Pack 296 right here in Loveland. I progressed through the ranks of Cub Scouting earning the all 20 award as a Webelo two and the Arrow of Light award, the highest award a Cub Scout can earn. After this I moved up into Boy Scouting where life lessons and lifelong friendships are made. To this day some of my closest friends I have are because we were all involved in Scouting. As a timid 10 ½ year old new Boy Scout, I remember looking up to the older scouts thinking how neat they were with all their merit badges and ranks they were earning. Well fast forward a few years and I was well onto my path to Eagle Scout.
Completing the requirements for Eagle is no small task. What I believe to be the hardest part to this day is the leadership demonstrating Eagle Scout project. My chosen project was constructing 12 steel based redwood park benches for Barbour Ponds State Park, now named St. Vrain State Park in Longmont, Colorado. Sounds easy doesn’t it?? I can assure you it was anything but! I successfully earned the rank of Eagle Scout on April 20th, 2000 and swore to the Scoutmaster of the troop at the time that I would stick around for a minimum of one year to teach and lead the younger scouts. Well one year became two, then all of a sudden four years had gone by; and well now here at age 38 some sixteen years later, and 33 consecutive years in scouting, I am still a registered and very active leader with Troop 184. Also as an Adult I am now a NRA shooting sports instructor in multiple disciplines and the Venturing Crew Advisor for Crew 184. In the recent past I have been an Assistant Scoutmaster, Committee Member, Treasurer, and I am back to Assistant Scoutmaster. Also I am currently the adult head webmaster for the troop184.org website.
My heart lies with scouting, you’ll probably bury me in a uniform…but I also volunteer for some other organizations as well. One of them is Colorado 4×4 Rescue and Recovery. We help recover people from the back roads of Colorado that have broken down, got stuck, got lost, etc. The skills I have learned in scouting directly tie into this organization! Knots, First Aid, CPR/AED… it is really amazing how much scouting impacts your daily life FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
My other passion lies with Emergency Communications. I am licensed by the FCC for communication on the Amateur Radio bands and am assigned to the Loveland Emergency Operations center in downtown Loveland should a disaster ever strike in the north Colorado area. Our most recent activation was during the 2013 Big Thompson Flood. I was assigned to canyon ops and witnessing the power of the water, the rope rescues, and having a role that day allowing me to witness first hand the devastation changed my life forever.
Well I think that is enough about me for now! I hope you enjoy looking through the site, if you are ever interested in stopping by one of our meetings, click on the contact link and pick any one of us to send an email to. We look forward to hearing from you!
Yours in Scouting,
Justin King