Lou “Mr. N” Napolitano: Leading Centerville Boy Scouts for 38 years

Since the troop’s inception in 1982, Lou Napolitano has served as Scout Master for the Centerville Boy Scout Troop 400.

“I was the first Scout Master, and I’ve still been the only Scout Master. They can’t find anybody to replace me, so I’m just stuck with it,” Napolitano said with a laugh.

All jokes aside, Napolitano, affectionately called “Mr. N” by the troop members, said that he loves what he does, and it is one of his greatest hopes that his leadership and mentorship will have a lasting impression on the boys that he has led and served over the years. Since the onset of the global pandemic, Napolitano admitted that it has been a challenge for his troop to be active and visible in the community.

“Usually, we do a lot of stuff with Centerville,” he mentioned. “We participate in their Christmas parade; we have a Clean Community activity in April where we go around the community and pick up any debris that people put on their lawn. Some of my older boys would ride with the people in Centerville and pick that stuff up and bring it to the recycling place where they have these big tubs that they throw all the junk in.”

The younger boys don’t get left out of these projects. Napolitano said they would already be at the recycling center waiting for the hauls to come in. There, they would assist people with unloading their cars and placing the items in the appropriate containers.

“Sometimes, we’d spend the better part of the day doing that on Saturdays,” he stated. Although it was a lot of work, Napolitano said the boys enjoyed teaming up together and knowing what they were doing was helpful to the community.

As for Eagle projects, Troop 400 has done a number of those for the city as well. “We took in a lot of the old debris and brush from the new community center,” Napolitano shared. “We also put up one of those book stations for City Hall—where you can pick up old books. One of my Eagle Scouts made that one of his projects. As a matter of fact, he built two of those; one for Centerville and one for Warner Robins.”

Camping is the one activity that Napolitano said he has missed most of all during COVID-19. “We’d try to go camping each month to visit a state park or a private property. One of my former assistant scout masters has a farm over in Crawford County, and we’d go there to do outdoor things like camping and merit badge stuff.”

Further, Napolitano stated, “Over the years, we’ve taken the troop to South Carolina to the aircraft carrier in Yorktown to spend the night. It’s an educational trip. We’ve also taken them to Mobile to the Battleship Alabama for the same reason. Every other year, we alternate going to these two places. That way, the boys get a variety and it doesn’t get too repetitive. We also go to the University of Georgia’s Unicoi State Park and spend a week up there in the mountains to do a lot of our merit badge events like wilderness survival, nature and things like that. Of course, we can’t do that now either, so it’s been hard.”

As has been the case with almost everything else, the coronavirus pandemic has altered the way the troop functions. However, Napolitano said that it hasn’t brought everything to a complete halt.

“We have quite a large scout building behind First Methodist Church of Centerville, and what we’ve done is spaced the chairs out to social distance. The boys—if parents will let them—will come each week to meet. When we meet, we do what we can with how many that show up. Right now, we’re working on merit badges. Most of the boys are working on citizenship and the world.”

To help them with that project, Napolitano has connected the members of his troop with his grandson who lives abroad. “My grandson is in Scotland in the Scottish Scouts, and my boys wrote letters to him to find out what’s different between Scottish Scouts and American Scouts. Right now, they’re waiting for his feedback on that.”

Napolitano revealed that membership in the Centerville troop has dwindled, and he wants to do all he can to get more boys involved. Even during the pandemic, they are finding creative ways to do activities.

“This past summer, instead of going to a summer camp, we had what we called a ‘camp-in,’” shared Napolitano. “The boys would come to the scout building at 9:00 in the morning and stay until 4:00 in the afternoon working on merit badges. They worked on weather merit badges and scout building. And then,” he added, “I live out in Quail Run, and I’ve got a swimming pool; so we worked on swimming merit badges in the afternoons. We worked on the merit badge by having them swim, dive and rescue.”

Napolitano explained that those merit badges are important for scouts to obtain because each one puts them one step closer to becoming an Eagle Scout, which is the highest rank or achievement attainable. In the 38 years that Napolitano has been Scout Master, an impressive 83 boys from Troop 400 have made Eagle Scout.

“To make Eagle Scout, each boy has to earn 21 merit badges and 14 of them are required,” Napolitano explained. “They also have to carry out a project that they themselves plan and supervise. That project has to be approved by me and my committee and also The Boys Scouts of America Council in Macon. Once it’s approved by The Boy Scouts of America Council, it gets sent off to national in Texas. If they approve it, that boy gets to be an Eagle Scout for life. It’s a lot of work for a boy to become an Eagle Scout.”

Napolitano stressed that he would love to get more boys to join the troop. At one time, he said, they had over 40 scouts and were able to do many additional things because of the active members. He wants to reach or exceed that number again, and said that anyone interested in getting boys signed up should give him a call at 478-953-4572.

“They can also come and sit in on a Monday night meeting at 7:00 p.m.,” Napolitano added. “I’d much rather have them come see what the troop does, even as small as it is right now. If they come, they can see firsthand what we do, what we need and what our policies are before signing up their boys.”

In Napolitano’s troop, the ages range from 11 until the scout turns 18 years of age. However, there is also a Cub Scout pack that is also chartered by First United Methodist Church, and it is for boys ranging from first through fifth grades. People interested in that troop can also reach out to Napolitano at the number previously provided.

The Boy Scouts of America is a great organization for young men to learn responsibility, life skills and establish friendships, all while having fun, and Scout Master Napolitano has poured nearly four decades of his life into helping them do just that.

“I’m 82 years old now, and 83 of my boys have made Eagle Scout,” Napolitano said. “I’m shooting for 100. I want to say 100 boys made Eagle Scout under my leadership. I’ve been doing this so long that I can’t give it up, and I’d love to meet that goal before I have to.”

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