Never an Eagle but always a leader

**Dr. Dennis Crabb with his 80th Eagle Scout, Logan Dahm, in 2020. Crabb retired as a scoutmaster this summer after nearly 33 years.** Submitted Photo

Dr. Dennis Crabb retired as scoutmaster of Troop 55 in Denison in July, but plans to stay involved with the organization.

He said his time as scoutmaster – and his life – were heavily influenced by his time as a Boy Scout.

“I was a scout when I was a kid,” Dennis said. “I was in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and reached the rank of Life – I didn’t quite make Eagle.”

Eagle is the highest rank a Boy Scout can attain.

He was also an Explorer Scout and spent a summer riding with Crawford County Sheriff Don Stehr.

Dennis had an early taste of leadership with the Boy Scouts in 1963.

“We didn’t have any adults to take us to camp so I took the kids to camp (Camp Wakonda in Griswold), as a youth with the help of adults and other units watching over us,” Dennis said. “We had a good time.”

During his time as a Scout, Dennis didn’t have anyone pushing him to get his Eagle.

“I think I had five or six merit badges and a project left, but I discovered the three Ps: perfume, petroleum and paychecks,” he said.

“I was out of scouting for quite a number of years as I went through college, med school and my surgical residency.”

He returned to Denison in 1977 to join his father’s medical practice.

His parents, Dayrle and Kathryn Crabb, died in a plane crash in January 1978.

Dennis decided to continue the practice in Denison.

“We had three kids; three boys that were active in Cub Scouts, which my wife primarily handled because those meetings were in the late afternoons and I was still working in the office,” he said. “When my oldest moved into Boy Scouts, I went with him to a meeting at Washington Park, which consisted of five kids and a couple of adults who sat at a picnic table and watched the kids play basketball.”

Dennis didn’t think it looked much like the Boy Scout meetings he remembered.

“I complained about it to the committee chairman, and she said, ‘Well, you can have the job if you want it,’” he said.

Dennis took over as scoutmaster of Troop 55 in October 1990.

“We were unable to go to summer camp in 1990 because I had other obligations, but in 1991 we went to summer camp and have gone to summer camp every single year since then,” Dennis said. “Most of those times at Camp Cedars on the south side of the Platte River (in Nebraska).”

His philosophy, based on his own experience, has been to encourage scouts to get their Eagle as quickly as they can.

“I’ve been pushing these scouts to get to move up and advance before they discover the three Ps,” he said.

He hasn’t always been successful, but he has done well enough to see his 80th Eagle Scout in 2020; all three of his sons achieved the rank.

“It has served them well,” Dennis said. “I’ve had many scouts tell me that being an Eagle Scout has really helped as they went off to seek jobs.”

A Sioux City business owner told him that he automatically hires any applicant who was an Eagle Scout.

“He said he hired them immediately because he knew what they’d been through and he could trust them,” Dennis said.

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Another of his former scouts applied for a security/intel position and ended up in a 45-minute conversation about scouting.

“When he finally asked about the job, the colonel said, ‘You got the job because you were an Eagle Scout,’” he said.

Dennis took his scouts to the National Jamboree four times, once as scoutmaster in charge of 36 scouts and another three times chief medical officer in a subcamp with a crew of 12 that helped keep healthy the campsite of 1,500 people.

Other trips involved sailboats and snorkeling in Key West, sailing in the Bahamas 1,100 miles of driving scouts and leaders in a rental van around the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands, which had only one road around the island and no vans large enough to carry everyone.

He remains in contact with many of his former Boy Scouts and is proud of their accomplishments; among them are a principal, a flight instructor and an NFL player.

Dennis said being a responsible citizen is the most important lesson Boy Scouts learn.

“We try to teach them how to take care of themselves and we try to teach them how to take care of others and be good citizens,” he said. “The principles of the Scout Law and the principles of the Scout Oath are what we teach them and the slogan is ‘Do a Good Turn Daily,’ and the motto is ‘Be Prepared.’ I think they have all done a good job in that.”

Those lessons informed his own life.

“I was on the airport commission for many years and I support as many of the local activities as I can,” Dennis said. “I’m getting older now so I can’t always go to them, but I support them.”

He turned over Troop 55 to Scoutmaster Troy Gehlsen this summer but he will remain involved with the scouts.

“I’m on the committee and helping with advancement,” he said. “We have 13 scouts right now. Of those, nine of them are Life Scouts working toward Eagle. Some of them are getting quite close. We’ll keep pushing them. I never got my Eagle and that’s why I pushed these kids to get theirs.”

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