Explorer Scouts still a troop after 64 years

Aug. 9—NORTH ANDOVER — Robert Banks has covered a lot of ground in his 89 years.

The North Andover native, who now lives in Salem, New Hampshire, has hiked in the Himalayas and the Alps and also completed the Appalachian Trail. He walked from one side of England to the other, and climbed Denali in Alaska, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Banks climbed all the mountains over 14,000 feet in Colorado, and all the 4,000 footers in New Hampshire. He has hiked and climbed mountains in Venezuela, Thailand, the Philippines and Chile. He crossed Canada on a bike, then rode down the west coast of America before coming back across the states.

But of all his trips, the most memorable may have been in the summer of 1958, when Banks led a group of teenage Explorer Scouts from North Andover, Troop 83, to the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico.

That journey certainly left an impression on former troop members James Meyers, Gerald Arcari, Jeffrey Kress, Douglas Mayer and David Roberts, who got together with Banks on Thursday afternoon at Grassfields restaurant in Andover.

They have been holding these lunches since the early 1990s, when Banks first called them back together in Ossipee, New Hampshire, 35 years after the original trip.

"They got to McDonald's in Ossipee ahead of me and they were all having coffee and breakfast," Roberts said. "I walked in. What a thrill that was. We had all gone our own ways, raised our families, and here we were together."

Following that first reunion, they would connect every year, initially for a hike in the fall and then lunch in December.

"Usually on the hike in the fall we'd be catching up, whose family did what, my kid did this," Meyers said. "When we met for lunch, it was more about Philmont, remembering us back in the day, laughing and kidding each other."

Banks graduated from North Andover High School in 1951, and worked at Western Electric and later at the IRS. He joined the Peace Corps in 1975, serving in Malaysia for 3 1/2 years.

The trip that Banks led to New Mexico was scheduled to leave North Andover on July 2, according to a story in the Eagle-Tribune on June 30, 1958, and was supposed to return on July 27.

"We had a whole year of making money to subsidize the trip, bean suppers and popcorn sales," Roberts said.

There were 10 scouts traveling in two cars, one of which pulled supplies in a trailer, and they stopped at state parks and military institutions along the way.

"The most memorable was Fort Campbell, Kentucky," Roberts said. "The 82nd Airborne were there. We had to eat at the mess hall and we got up early in the morning, at 5:30 a.m., and on the way to the mess hall the sky was lit up, filled with paratroopers."

Philmont Scout Ranch, five miles south of Cimarron in northeastern New Mexico, is more than 120,000 acres of prairie and mountains that were donated to the Boy Scouts by businessman Waite Phillips in 1938.

Troop 83 spent at least 10 days there hiking in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rocky Mountains, where they made their own shelter one night at 11,000 feet.

"We got a 50 mile award," Roberts said. "We covered about 14 miles a day. While we were out there we saw unbelievable wildlife, from rattlesnakes to mountain lions, and we climbed Mount Clear Creek, which is the tallest mountain there."

Banks also took the occasion to volunteer his troop for a conservation project at Philmont.

"We had to dig a brook so we could drain this swamp, and how he ever came up with this, I don't know," Roberts said. "What happened is, we had all 10 of us digging in the slop and the mud and Bob was up over us with a pith helmet, like in 'The Bridge on the River Kwai,' and he's directing us. Somebody took a photo of us and put it in Boys' Life magazine, with the caption, 'Scouts clean up.'"

The trip to Philmont was the most extensive excursion that they all took together as a group, creating the bonds that drew them back together 35 years later.

But it was only one of many adventures that Banks took them on, both at that time and later. Arcari said he took a trip with Banks to Alaska in the early 1990s, around the time the Philmont Bunch, as they started calling themselves, began holding reunions.

"We went up to Alaska, four of us went up with Bob," he said. "One of the scouts (Meyers) was a pilot in the Navy and he flew us up there and Bob and I climbed all kinds of mountains."

Meyers remembers that Banks took him on a two-week canoe trip in Minnesota and Manitoba before they went to Philmont, when Meyers was 16 and Banks was 23.

"He arranged for all the provisions and brought the canoe with us," Meyers said. "Fourteen days on a circular route. We only saw two people in 14 days, portaging and canoeing."

Over the years, Banks also took the group to explore caves in Western Massachusetts and upstate New York.

"They were wild caves, not commercial," Meyers said. "There were no signs near them. You'd just find them in the woods. We'd find them in library books. He got me into that."

Meyers became such a fan of cave exploration, he started a club when he went to college in West Virginia, where the caves were bigger.

"We could go into a cavern as big as a stadium, but you might crawl through a hole to get to it," he said.

Meyers was a year older than most of the others, and said that after he left for college, Banks expanded the troop's adventures into another arena entirely, attending plays and exploring museums.

"I would have enjoyed the cultural things as well," Meyers said. "He was continuously coming up with things that were fun to do."

Everyone except Roberts, who is 79, is now in their 80s. There are a few members of Troop 83 who have never participated in the reunions, and a couple that have passed away.

While the core group has stayed in touch throughout the pandemic, "the hiking part of it probably stopped a couple of years ago," Meyers said.

Banks, whose health and focus are now fragile, once credited Ralph York, a pastor at First United Method Church in North Andover, with introducing him to canoeing and hiking.

But Banks' passion for the outdoors was clearly unique, and still inspires the Explorer Scouts who joined his adventures.

"Bob is just a gentle spirit, the nicest, kindest spirit," Roberts said.

Meyers said he was an average student who was only interested in sports and was "going nowhere fast" before he met Banks.

"Bob took us on so many different things," Meyers said. "He was a mentor to me. He changed my life."

While Banks always enjoyed the challenge of a difficult climb, he also had high moral standards that Arcari and the others admired.

"He really instilled in me ethics, which was so important, especially today, and also to never give up," Arcari said.

He never would have made it through boot camp in the Marine Corps if he hadn't learned those lessons from Banks, Arcari said, although he doesn't liken Banks to a drill instructor.

"He had a way of teaching us without pressure," Arcari said. "You wanted to do it, I think is what made it successful. At that young age, you resist anybody that pushed you and Bob would never push. He would set the example, and we would follow."