When I started my 11-year Girl Scout career, there were no Daisy Scouts and you had to be a second grader before you could be a Brownie. The year was maybe 1966 or ’67 -- or about 54 years after Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girls Scouts of America on March 12, 1912.

Sheryl Bryant, Brownie leader at Lipscomb Elementary, doesn’t know how long Girl Scouts have been associated with Lipscomb, a school whose roots go all the way back to back to 1866, but she wants to. We know there weren’t any Girl Scouts there then, but might there have been when Dr. Dennis Wyatt was principal in 1951? Or in 1958 when the building was destroyed by fire and a new school was rebuilt at its present site? Were cookies sold after school in the early ‘90s when the current school was built?

“I really don't know who else to write to possibly help me with this,” Sheryl emailed. “The Girl Scouts turn 100 in 2012 and the (Middle Tennessee) Council is having a huge event at the Ag/Expo Center, but I thought it would be cool to have a ‘reunion’ of sorts for Girl Scouts that attended Lipscomb Elementary. 

“Since it's the oldest elementary school in Williamson County, I was thinking they had been there for a while.  But I can only trace back in time to the early ‘70s,” she continued. Sheryl has learned that the Boy Scouts were chartered at Lipscomb in 1959, since Boy Scout troops must re-charter every year. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with the Girl Scouts, so Sheryl is stumped.

She spoke with the local council’s historian without any success.

“Any suggestions?” she asked. Why, of course, let me ask BHP readers, I said. They always have answers. Or at least opinions.

So, if any of you old-timers who attended Lipscomb in the ‘50s or ‘60s or even earlier are aware of Girl Scouting programs at the school prior to the ‘70s, please let me know. Sheryl wants to invite you to the party, and I promise I’ll come and cover it. I still have my sash and pins and badges. Do you?