Wednesday, August 27, 1997
Longtime area scoutmaster honored
By ROY A. JONES II / Regional Editor
As many times as Frank Pellizzari Jr. has been honored by his
hometown of Breckenridge and by the Boy Scouts of America, you'd
think he'd be used to making acceptance speeches.
But the scoutmaster burst into tears and was unable to continue
when the latest scouting award was pinned to the beribboned chest
of his uniform Tuesday.
That he was physically weak had much to do with the emotion.
The award was presented at Abilene Regional Medical Center, where
the 76-year-old, retired Breckenridge shoemaker has been a patient
for nearly a month. He was admitted in critical condition with
a blood disorder in late July but has improved enough to move
to a private room in the Skilled Nursing Unit.
When he became short of breath during the brief ceremony, a
nurse quickly stepped forward and turned up the oxygen attached
to the back of his wheelchair.
"This kinda keeps me tied down," he joked.
Eric Howell of Brownwood, new scout executive for the Comanche
Trail Council, presented Pellizzari with the James E. West Fellowship
Award, named for the first chief scout executive of the Boy Scouts
of America -- an award which was especially meaningful to Pellizzari.
With much difficulty, the veteran scoutmaster explained later
that during a memorable trip to the very first Boy Scout Jamboree
-- held in 1937 in Washington, D.C. -- he got to meet West and
President Franklin Roosevelt on successive days.
He said he and some other scouts from the Chisholm Trail Council
were walking down a dirt road when a large, open touring car stopped
to let them pass.
"Mr. West was in the car and he called us over and asked
where we were from," Pellizzari said. It was the highlight
of his young life until the following day when he and several
other Scouts were standing in a long line hoping to tour the White
House.
"Suddenly some T-men, the U.S. Treasury agents who guarded
the president before the Secret Service, pulled several of us
from the line and told us to come with them," he said. "To
our surprise they took us into the Oval Office and there sat the
president with his cigarette and holder in the corner of his mouth
and a wide grin.
"He asked each of us where we were from and when I said
Breckenridge, Texas, he commented that his vice president (John
Nance Garner) was from Uvalde," Pellizzari recalled.
Sobbing again, Pellizzari said any recognition should not go
to him but to the assistant scoutmasters who helped him throughout
his 60 years of leadership.
Pellizzari became an Eagle Scout in 1937 and since then has
inspired 77 other young men to become Eagle Scouts.
Two strokes, surgery on one hand and one leg, and lung cancer
forced Pellizzari to close his downtown Breckenridge shoe shop,
founded by his father in 1918, last September. But his love for
Breckenridge has not waned; he continued to help his wife, Jeanette,
deliver meals for Meals on Wheels until his latest hospitalization.
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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