Joe
Burton Linker Jr. started a family tradition in 1935 when he joined Chapel
Hill's Boy Scout Troop 5 and achieved his Eagle status in 1939.
His grandson, Jaan Halbrook, son of Linker's daughter Jane, became the latest link in the Linker tradition a few weeks ago when he achieved his Eagle in Greenville, S. C.
Many other Linker Eagle achievements came in between -- Linker's brothers Ned and Bob, and their sons, and Linker's son, Joe Burton Linker III -- all have learned being prepared the Boy Scout way and earned the Eagle rank.
Linker's memories of scouting provide a history trip. He was born in Chapel Hill, where his father was a professor of mathematics at the University of North Carolina, and he joined Troop 5 at the age of 12.
Scouting was a rite of passage for local 12-year-old boys. Troop 5, established in 1910, was one of the first in the country, and there were about 40 scouts broken down into five patrols containing six or seven boys each. In 1936, there were so many scouts the Troop split and Troop 39, which is still active today at University United Methodist Church, was formed. Shortly after, it split again and Troop 9 started meeting at Chapel of the Cross.
Troop 5 started through the campus YMCA and though there was a scout master, leadership came mainly through a senior patrol leader and the boys themselves.
"An assistant scout master from the university came in and did some leadership," Linker said. "We were not told what to 11 do; we made our own plans and did it. We learned to carry responsibility."
Back in those days, a boy earned his Eagle award by earning 21 of the "right kind" of merit badges. The scout manual was their guide. Linker, who lives in Carol Woods with his wife, Mary Jane, still has his scout manual, which is so well used the covers are missing and some of the pages are loose. It's a beautiful, if somewhat dated, manuscript.
Earning a badge was a true accomplishment in those days. Linker well remembers his adventures while accomplishing his cycling badge. The requirements are stated in the manual: "Rigorously ride bike 10 miles a day, six days a week for three months. Next, ride 25 miles on each of two days a week for three months." After that came a 50 mile trip and a 100 mile trip.
Linker, of course, accomplished it. He lived on Dogwood Drive in Forest Hills (the Westwood neighborhood just west of the hospital), when that area was not even a part of town.
We were way out in the county," Linker said. "The city limit was at the dental school." It was a mile to school, and he would ride his bike to class every morning then home for lunch and back to school; then he would ride around after school to put in his 10 miles a day.
When it came time for his 25 mile trip, he had worked up enough stamina that he would ride his bike to Raleigh via Sanford, leaving at 6 a.m., take in a movie, then ride back that afternoon.
"It was strenuous. Everything | you got into (for a badge), you got into deeply." He got into electricity so deeply he made a | career of it, becoming an engineer and retiring from General Electric in '96.
Troop 5 met in "the convict shack" in the wooded area where the Ambulatory Care Center, UNC Hospitals is now.
"The shack had a big open area in the middle where we would all meet, and there were five rooms around the edges for patrol meetings." He said it was made of slab and they kept it whitewashed. The shack had been built to house convicts who worked by day on the paving of Pinehurst Road (U. S. 15 501). There were electrical lights, but there was no indoor plumbing.
Linker remembers the excitement on Monday evenings, knowing that after dinner he would jump on his bike and go to his scout meeting. "We il were out there in the woods every week," he said. "We could make all kinds of noise without bothering anybody."
A part of the time out in the woods was spent earning the pioneering badge, which he worked on with Grimsley Hobbs who would go on to become president of Gilmore College. This column recently carried a story on his son Ruffin Hobbs, a sculptor who il created stainless steel tigers for Princeton University.
Linker and Hobbs worked for four months on that badge, building bridges and shelters and other things in the woods, using natural materials and rope.
Another highlight of his scouting experience was in 1940 when the troop spent a week at the World's Fair in New York. Linker was the bugler for Troop 5 and was assigned to blow his bugle while they were camped at the World's Fair village.
"There were many occasions to blow the bugle at flag raising ceremonies three or four times a day. It was quite a big deal for a 14-year-old," Linker said.
Another big deal was seeing the automobile models for the future. "General Motors had an exhibit with models for the super highways with cloverleaves."
The troop also represented the state at the launching of the battleship North Carolina, which is now a museum in I Wilmington.
Linker moved away from Chapel Hill after serving in the Navy, spending much of his adult life in Syracuse, N. Y., and Lynchburg, Va., but always returning to visit his parents. His mother Jane moved to Carol Woods and lived to be l00, dying in 1997. For one year, the two generations of Linkers were neighbors on the Carol Woods campus.
Linker took the physical conditioning he learned in scouting into his adulthood and continues it still. His daily regimen is to either walk six miles or swim one.
After retiring he took a hike with a professor from Lynchburg. Starting in Mexico, they hiked 900 miles carrying 60 pound packs, over the San Gabriel Mountains, Mt. Whitney, the High Sierras and to their intended destination of Yosemite.
"I'm probably one of the few people who saw Yosemite for the first time after hiking there from Mexico," Linker said. "I stepped over l0 rattlesnakes along the way. It worked out OK."
