A re�flec�tion on the leg�acy of a loc�al Phil�adelphia Boy Scout fam�ily lead�er.
From his ra�cing secrets and strategies in Pine�wood Derbies to cut�ting his hon�ey�moon short due to his de�vo�tion to the scouts, Robert "Skip" Leo�pold's 64 years of ser�vice will not be soon for�got�ten by the Boy Scouts of Amer�ica (BSA), spe�cific�ally the troops he im�pacted the most in the neigh�bor�hoods of the River Wards.
The scout�ing fam�ily of Phil�adelphia suffered a tre�mend�ous loss in Oc�to�ber when Leo�pold, the BSA dis�trict's vice chair�man, passed away.
To hon�or this pil�lar of Phil�adelphia scout�ing, Troop 171 donated all of their
col�lec�ted items from the an�nu�al Scout�ing for Food drive in Leo�pold's name to
St. Mi�chael's Luther�an Church, 2139 E. Cum�ber�land St., where Leo�pold had been a mem�ber since 1966.
"Skip did whatever he could to keep scout�ing alive in these neigh�bor�hoods," said An�nemarie Bravo, cub�mas�ter of Troop 171. "It was fit�ting that we should give everything we had to St. Mi�chael's just in his hon�or."
Cham�pi�on of the Boy Scouts, de�voted lead�er and a man ded�ic�ated to self�less
ser�vice, Leo�pold had been a part of the boy scouts since he was 10 years old. Leo�pold transitioned from Cub Scouts, to Boy Scouts and even�tu�ally joined the Navy in 1959, where he ap�plied many of the skills and men�tal�it�ies learned dur�ing his time with the scouts, ac�cord�ing to Leo�pold's son, Robert Leo�pold III, 49.
Upon re�turn�ing home from the Navy, Leo�pold once again revved up his ca�reer with the Boy Scouts. As his sons, Rob and Steve, came of age and joined the scout�ing fam�ily them�selves, Leo�pold began serving as an in�sti�tu�tion�al
rep�res�ent�at�ive.
"My fath�er ba�sic�ally set the ex�ample for both me and my broth�er," said Robert Leo�pold. "We're prob�ably bet�ter people today be�cause of the as�so�ci�ation my fath�er had with scout�ing."
Leo�pold touched many as�pects of scout�ing in the Phil�adelphia re�gion, hold�ing
po�s�i�tions from chapter ad�visor to vice chair of the dis�trict com�mit�tee. His
com�mit�ment to Boy Scouts and love for the cause of�ten touched all realms of his life.
In 1965, Leo�pold mar�ried his wife Pa�tri�cia. The two planned an open-ended
hon�ey�moon to Niagara Falls, where Mrs. Leo�pold would soon truly understand her new hus�band's love for the scouts.
"Dur�ing their hon�ey�moon, my dad said he had to get back to Phil�adelphia for a scout�ing event," Leo�pold III said. "My moth�er lit�er�ally spent the second part of her hon�ey�moon with hun�dreds of scouts at a city-wide jam�bor�ee, atop Bel�mont
Plat�eau."
But scout�ing be�came more than just a pas�sion for Leo�pold; it be�came a fam�ily
vo�ca�tion.
With Leo�pold's sons both still in�volved with the Boy Scouts and the large ma�jor�ity of his fam�ily also par�ti�cip�at�ing in one way or an�oth�er, the en�tire Leo�pold fam�ily shows tre�mend�ous com�mit�ment and ded�ic�a�tion to the scouts.
"One of the jokes in my fam�ily is when you marry a Leo�pold man, you look at the fine print on the bot�tom of the mar�riage li�cense that ba�sic�ally says, 'Wife must join scout�ing,' " Leo�pold III said.
For those closest to Leo�pold, Sat�urday's food drive served as the cherry on top of Leo�pold's im�mensely im�pact�ful hand in the build�ing and main�tain�ing of the scouts in Phil�adelphia.
Troop 171 donated about 200 items in total to St. Mi�chael's Church in hon�or of Leo�pold, ac�cord�ing to Bravo. While this year's Scout�ing for Food pro�gram did not bring in as much food as the Bravo would like to see, the troop was happy to give everything col�lec�ted in Leo�pold's name.
The Phil�adelphia scout fam�ily will surely feel the loss of Leo�pold, but his leg�acy has built a beacon of all things the Boy Scouts stand for.
"One of the ma�jor as�pects of boy scout�ing is build�ing char�ac�ter and build�ing
cit�izen�ship," Leo�pold III said. "My dad was someone to be set aside to be an
ex�ample of how to be a good scout."