SCOUTS: Valor Medals

To be decorated or commended by the National Court of Honor (Daniel Carter Beard, chairman) is the height of Boy Scout achievement. Often as not, the deeds which the Court rewards with its highest honor of all, a gold medal, are heroic to the point of death. This year the Court of Honor has awarded 21 medals and 41 certificates of heroism. The four medals most lately awarded were announced last week, for the following deeds:

Mill Dam. Five persons in a rowboat were caught under a mill dam waterfall near Mendota, Va. Tenderfoot Scout Ross Smith, aged 15, dragged ashore his sister, Emma Smith. He then helped his brother, Max Smith, drag out Mrs. J. J. McQueen. Mrs. McQueen weighed 210 Ib. Trying next to save Max Smith, who Went down during Mrs. McQueen’s rescue. Scout Ross Smith drowned. The gold medal went to his parents.

Hurricane. Scouts of Sidney. Ohio, ran a refreshment tent at the Sidney Chautauqua last year. A hurricane came. Scout James Anderson, aged 14, braced a tent pole with his body until all other occupants had escaped. The falling tent pole struck Scout Anderson on the head as he released it. He later died. His parents got the medal.

Resuscitation. Three years ago, Salvatore Ingoglia, aged 14, was drowning in Hollis Lake, N.Y. Assistant Scoutmaster Charles F. Reuel of Jamaica, N. Y., applied artificial respiration to the body after it had been submerged ten minutes; revived Salvatore Ingoglia.

Ice Ledge. Last February, Lloyd J. Stewart, aged 3, of Whitefish. Mont., fell into the Whitefish River. Scout Harley Warn Jr. dived beneath a ledge of ice, came up, dived again, came up, dived again and again. Lloyd J. Stewart drowned but Scout Warn recovered the body.