History of Troop 68
By Bill Athey, Scoutmaster

There used to be a cub scout pack that met at Citrus Park Elementary School.  Charlie Bob Wilson was their Cub master.  He was concerned that the Pack's Cub Scouts had no troop to go into when they got too old for Cub Scouts.  In 1957, a leadership nucleus consisting of Fred Schoenborn, John F. Vaughan, William L. Hatton, Ken Townsend, Bob Storm, and George M. Lewis got together and started Boy Scout Troop 68, chartered by the Keystone United Methodist Church.  Since Fred Schoenborn had 3 years experience as the Assistant Scoutmaster for Troop 33, which met at the Seminole Heights Methodist Church, he was a natural to be the first Scoutmaster of Troop 68.  At that time, the troop used to meet in  the wooden barracks building behind the church.  One set of the barracks was eventually moved near where the Fellowship Hall is currently located and turned into the Troop 68 "Scout Hut."  When the new fellowship hall was built the troop started meeting in it.  No longer needed and looking dilapidated, the old "Scout Hut" was burnt down as a practice operation by the Gunn Highway Volunteer Fire Department.
    
Eventually, Lawrence Vaughan became scoutmaster of the troop.  The early troop used to camp at places such as Big Cypress, Big Prairie Lake, Hog Island, Withlacoochee Croom, Chinsegut Hill, Oleno at High Springs, and the mountains near Clayton, Georgia.  The troop even had a contingent consisting of Fred Schoenborn, Lawrence Vaughan, Jim Armitage, David Herceg, and Frank Caldwell who attended the June 1960 National Jamboree at Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Troop 68's bivouac won 1st place for the best setup at the Jamboree.

The troop has always been very active with the exception of one year back in 1979 when the troop did not have anyone to take over as scoutmaster.  In 1980, Gerald "Doc" Sammons revived the troop and gave it new life.  "Doc" Sammons is an avid backpacker and is currently working toward his aspiration of hiking the complete Appalachian Trail.  He turned the troop in the direction of "High Adventure" which attracted many new boys into the scouting program.
    
Currently, the troop participates in many community service projects like feeding needy families around Thanksgiving and buying gifts/food for them at Christmas-time.  The troop has held training sessions for various cub scout packs at Lake Rogers Park, participates in church work days, car parking for church functions, cleanups for parks, providing staff for camp Brorein, and many Eagle projects have been done that improve our community.  The troop tries to camp once a month and does many neat things like: spelunking, flying in both land and seaplanes, body surfing, half pipe skating, bicycle camping, backpacking, canoeing, tubing, snorkeling, rocketry, participate in building a real satellite launched on the shuttle, amateur radio, swimming, and tours of (airports, control towers, nuclear submarines, naval ships, fire stations, etc.)  Camping consists of mountain camping and hiking in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida from the panhandle to the tip around Miami, even canoeing too and camping on islands.