Moylene Davis is not the typical Girl Scout leader. She is quiet and unassuming, never insisting on her way. She is the lady that always makes you feel safe and she has the confidence of someone who knows who she is and is comfortable with that person. Davis is the sort of lady that you always want to be around and who you will run to when you need support.

Davis has quietly been a part of the Goodwell Girl Scout Machine since 1957. She has taught Brownies, Juniors, and Cadets. She has taken hundreds of girls camping, day camping, and on other scouting adventures. She grins when she things of some of the trips. She even laughs out loud with a couple as she tells the story.

Although Davis has had a career and been a loyal church volunteer, she is best known as a Girl Scout. It seems to be who Davis is through and through. Her Scouting history actually started before 1957. When she was a 5^th grader in Beaver, Okla., she and Earlene Schafer were in the same troop. Their leader was Schafer’s mother, Hilda Hendricks. She remained a Girl Scout for five years. She has memories of going to the Easter Pageant in the mountains near Lawton. Her Scouting adventures had begun.

By 1957 she was married and living in Goodwell, as was Earlene. After she led the Cadet troop in 1957, with three girls in the group, she and her husband Johnnie moved to Telluride, Colorado. There she started Tellurides first troop.

Back to Goodwell in 1968, it didn’t take long for Davis to get back into the Girl Scout groove. Always a strong Scouting town, Schafer and Jolene Strong (a member of Goodwell’s first scout troop) came by and asked Davis to serve as Goodwells Service Unit Manager. Davis served in that capacity for as long as the Council deemed Goodwell needed a Service Unit Manager.

Over the years she also led a troop during the times needed. “I like watching the girls learn and have fun,” explains the soft spoken Davis, “to grow up a little bit. I like seeing them have opportunities to go outside their environment and see other things.” They have seen many things under the leadership of Davis.

“We’ve had day camps, sleepovers, and Council trips,” she says. Council trips have included Denver, Colo., Stillwater, and Oklahoma City. They have gone camping at Boiling Springs near Woodward, Lake Fryer near Perryton, and Camp Jim in Texas County. They have had day camps on the Cobb Ranch, the Freeman Ranch, and in Goodwell.

Davis pulls out a photo of a tent on a camping trip at Lake Fryer. The wind came up and filled the tent “like a balloon.”

Then Davis starts to tell the story about a time they were camping at the Cobb Ranch. They didn’t have their own tents at the time and had to borrow some from the Council. They borrowed two and it just so happened that one was red and one was blue.

“Now the Brownies are taught to go everywhere with their buddy,” explains Davis. The first evening, around dusk, the girls went for a hike toward the river. “The girls thought they saw a buffalo,” tells Davis. “It was just a bush and I tried to tell them it wasn’t a buffalo.” The next morning Davis woke up to a “pitiful little cry” from the red tent. She went to see what was wrong.

“All the girls had gone to the blue tent, leaving one little girl in the red tent. I suppose she had been asleep when they left. Whoever her buddy was didn’t take her.” The little girls had gotten to talking and they were just sure the buffalo bull was going to charge that red tent “and it would just be the end.” Davis has started laughing enough she has tears in her eyes.

“I don’t know how they thought that buffalo could see the tent was red in the dark.”

Camping has always been one of Davis’ favorite activities, although she admits that as she gets older it isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be. She loves teaching them camping skills.

Today in Goodwell Krista and Melody Gum are the Daisy Troop (K-first grade) leaders; there is no Brownie troop; Beth Mihelic is the Junior leader (4^th and 5^th grade); and Davis is the Cadet leader for the 6^th – 8^th graders. The girls still sell the traditional Girl Scout cookies and nuts.

Recently Davis troop earned the First Aid Patch with the help of Deb Mason, RN. “And now they’re working on their babysitting badge,” says Davis. “They are hoping to hold a day camp in the summer for six to nine year old boys and girls to earn their Silver Award,” she says with pride.

Davis thinks back when asked what her girls have enjoyed the most. “Earning the Horse Rider badge,” she thinks. Three of her junior troops have earned it.

In the past year Johnnie Davis built a beautiful Scouting House with wonderful storage, all-purpose room, full kitchen, and garage and named it in honor of Moylene. It’s a legacy that Moylene Davis and others have built in Goodwell. A legacy of caring and teaching and guiding. A legacy of love shown through Girl Scouting.

Moylene Davis (right) and her troop celebrate the 80^th Birthday of Girl Scouts in 1992. Girl Scouts pictures are Becky Strain (left) and Devan Shore (middle), all of Goodwell.