Tiny Athol once was the railhead at the center of the Girl Scouts’ universe.

On July 15, 1965, 616 girls from New York and New Jersey emerged from 27 Northern Pacific cars at Athol “singing, chanting and bustling with energy,” according to the Coeur d’Alene Press.

They were bound for the Girl Scout Senior Roundup 4 miles away at Farragut State Park. And they were met by excited Athol residents who lined the tracks for a quarter of a mile.

Many locals stayed another hour to greet 592 more Girl Scouts from Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine. And six more trainloads were expected on the following day from the South, Midwest and East.

Also, Scouts arrived on trains, planes and buses at Spokane and Sandpoint.

An estimated 9,000 to 12,000 girls attended the fourth Girl Scout Senior Roundup, which ran from July 17-28, 1965, including ones from more than 40 countries.

Gov. Robert Smylie viewed the scouts’ choice of Idaho for their 1965 roundup to be the greatest honor ever bestowed on his state.

Smylie and Margaret Price, national president of the Girl Scouts, dedicated the main crossroads of Roundup City: Smylie Boulevard and Price Road.

Said Smylie: “I plan to take any necessary steps to say that the name of Price Road remains as one of the many reminders of this greatest gathering of young women in the free world.”

Alas, the 1965 international roundup was to be the last mega happening.

Begun at Milford, Mich., in 1956, the roundup showcased Girl Scouting at its best. It was staged every three years afterward — in 1959 at Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1962 at Button Bay, Vt., and finally at the former Farragut Naval Training Station on Lake Pend Oreille.

In 1966, Girl Scout officials canceled the 1968 roundup in favor of regional ones.

But that wasn’t the end of major scouting events at Farragut.

In 1967, the first Boy Scout World Jamboree in this country — and 12th overall — was held at the state park from July 31 to Aug. 9, attracting 12,000 Scouts from 108 nations.

Born to be wild

You may know that Dean Haagenson was a Republican legislator and that his company, Contractors Northwest, overhauled McEuen Park a dozen years ago.

But did you know that, in 1969, Dean and some friends rode motorcycles through Asia and Europe after three years in Vietnam?

And that the buddies celebrated the trip — while they could still get their “leg over the top of the bikes” — two decades later with a long Canadian ride?

On July 16, 1990, Coeur d’Alene Press reporter Amy Cabe wrote of Dean & Co.: “They’re not characters from Hunter Thompson’s ‘Hell’s Angels.'”

Instead, Dean and his friends were civilians who worked for a large construction company in war-torn Vietnam. Afterward, they shipped their motorcycles to Singapore and began a trek through 17 countries.

They rode through the Khyber Pass, dodged rock throwers in Afghanistan, were detained at a cholera quarantine camp near Iran and swam in the Caspian Sea.

Of the 1990 reprise trip, Dean wanted “sunshine, moonlight, mountains and trees.”

Star struck

Quarterback John Brodie never won an NFL championship during his solid career (1957-73) with the San Francisco 49ers.

But he earned serious pocket change during the off-season from local duffers like Jack Collard, Tom Potter, John Richards and Jack Mitchell at the Hayden Lake Country Club.

John and his brother, Bill, became frequent flyers to North Idaho after their parents, Mr. and Mrs. A.L. Brodie and their little sister, Katie, began spending summers here in 1953.

Of her brothers, Katie once told The Press: “The world was their oyster. They were playing golf, water-skiing and chasing pretty girls in Hayden Lake and Coeur d’Alene.”

The elder Brodies and Katie moved to North Idaho to stay in 1964 after Katie, then 18, graduated from high school in the Bay Area.

In July 1965, John Brodie visited his family prior to a season in which he would lead the NFL in passing yardage and TDs.

Said Katie, who became a county commissioner and an aide to Gov. Butch Otter: “Hayden Lake … was just a special, special place. And to this day it still is.”

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: The wind it blowed so awful hard,/rolled up the sod in our front yard,/and old skinny Uncle Harry/came back down in Bonners Ferry – The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“Windy Day”).

• Preserving History: In the 1990s, Robert Singletary’s full-page “Kootenai Chronicles” was featured in The Press on Mondays. Complete with historic photos, Bob’s Chronicles told our collective back story. In 1995, 52 of his columns were compiled into a 17-by-11.5 paperback. Consider it a CliffNotes on local history. And it’s available in the library.

• Transition Library: It didn’t last 50 years, as Mayor Jim Fromm predicted July 16, 1985. Nor did it help save his job that November. But Jim deserves credit for his quick work in the city’s purchase of the old Louisiana Pacific building on Harrison Avenue for a library. Not only did it double the size of the existing library, but it also gave the city time to build a first-rate library downtown that opened Sept. 10, 2007.

• Think Big: Real Life Ministries is a mega-church with campuses at Post Falls, Coeur d’Alene, Athol, the Silver Valley and elsewhere. But on July 9, 2000, all of that was in the future as Pastor Jim Putman and others prayed and broke ground for their $1.2 million Post Falls church. Seems God answered the prayer in all caps: “YES.”

• A Long Time: For 15 years, North Idaho Centennial Trail fans worked to relocate the section along dangerous Northwest Boulevard. And they finally triumphed. On July 15, 2005, they dedicated a new stretch through Riverstone and along the Spokane River. A $500,000 federal grant and 10% local match helped. But perseverance was the key ingredient.

Parting shot

By mid-July 1990, Prosecutor Bill Douglas had had it with Richard Butler’s Aryan Nations. As Douglas searched for a creative way to stop the summer meetings of the Aryan World Congress near Hayden Lake, another racist confab had come and gone.

Douglas told The Press: “I am studying the possibility of enjoining the Aryan Nations from attracting violent people to (their 20-acre) compound.”

Butler claimed 200-250 racists had attended the 1990 gathering. But Douglas said that it drew 75 at most, adding, “Butler’s Aryan Congress was an utter failure.”

In response, Butler asked: “Is it illegal for white men to gather on private property?”

Butler should have listened to Douglas.

A decade later, a violent attack by three security guards on an innocent woman and her son led to a $6.3 million civil verdict that bankrupted the Aryan Nations. What goes around …

• • •

D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at oliveriadf@gmail.com.

National Girl Scout leader Margaret Price and Idaho Gov. Robert Smylie dedicated the Roundup City crossroads in 1965.

Legislator Dean Haagenson, Rick Rochat, Spence Guerin and Bob Wheeler reprised a long motorcycle trip two decades earlier in 1990.

San Francisco quarterback John Brodie and his father, A.L., posed at the Hayden Lake Country Club in 1965.

John Brodie’s little sister, Katie, in 2017.

Robert Singletary, left, and Coeur d’Alene Press editor Mike Feiler viewed a compilation of Robert’s “Kootenai Chronicles” columns in 1995.

Mayor Jim Fromm posed at the old Louisiana Pacific building in 1985, which became the Coeur d’Alene Library for 21 years.

Real Life Ministries pastor Jim Putman, center, prayed at the groundbreaking ceremony of the new Post Falls church in 2000.

Jim Byrd walked his dog, Bridgett, on a new section of North Idaho Centennial Trail along the Spokane River in 2005.

An unidentified neo-Nazi Sieg Heiled at the annual Aryan Nations World Congress in 1990. Violence later bankrupted Richard Butler’s group.