1. William Hillcourt, known within the Scouting movement as "Green Bar Bill", was an influential leader in the Boy Scouts of America organization from 1927 to 1992.
32 Facts About William Hillcourt
1. 2.
William Hillcourt developed and promoted the American adaptation of the Wood Badge adult Scout leader training program.
3.
William Hillcourt was Danish but moved to the United States as a young adult.
4.
William Hillcourt traveled all over the world teaching and training both Scouts and Scouters, earning many of Scouting's highest honors.
5.
William Hillcourt was born in 1900 in Aarhus, Denmark and was the youngest of three sons of a building contractor.
6.
William Hillcourt was given the name Vilhelm Hans Bjerregaard Jensen.
7.
William Hillcourt's first published work was a poem about trolls and elves, printed by an Aarhus newspaper when he was nine years old.
8.
For Christmas 1910, William Hillcourt's brother gave him a Danish translation of Scouting for Boys by Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scout movement.
9.
William Hillcourt went on to earn the highest award in Danish Scouting, Knight-Scout in 1918, at age 17.
10.
William Hillcourt was selected to represent his troop at the 1st World Scout Jamboree in Olympia in 1920 where he first met Baden-Powell, with whom he was later to work.
11.
William Hillcourt wrote his first book, The Island, recounting his early Scouting experiences.
12.
William Hillcourt was hired by the BSA's national office and worked for the BSA until he retired as a professional Scouter in 1965.
13.
In 1933 Hillcourt married Grace Brown, the personal secretary of Chief Scout Executive James E West.
14.
William Hillcourt worked at a BSA camp at Bear Mountain in Harriman State Park, New York, in 1926 where he became an instructor in American Indian dance.
15.
William Hillcourt then worked for the BSA Supply Division where he broke his leg when a crate fell on him.
16.
William Hillcourt met James West while riding in an elevator at the national office.
17.
William Hillcourt recommended that the BSA write a handbook for patrol leaders, and that it needed to be written by someone who had been both a patrol leader and a Scoutmaster.
18.
From 1932 until his retirement in 1965, William Hillcourt was a major contributor to Boys' Life, the magazine for Scouting youth.
19.
William Hillcourt then allowed Hillcourt access to Baden-Powell's letters, diaries and sketchbooks when she and Hillcourt co-authored the narrative biography of Baden-Powell, Baden-Powell: The Two Lives of a Hero.
20.
William Hillcourt completed the sixth edition of the Boy Scout Handbook in time for the BSA's 50th anniversary in 1960.
21.
William Hillcourt was a participant in that first course and four days later, he was the senior patrol leader for the second course.
22.
William Hillcourt received his Wood Badge beads in 1939 and was appointed as the deputy camp director for Wood Badge.
23.
Many Scouters, including William Hillcourt, were critical of the new program changes, exclaiming that the de-emphasis on traditional outdoor skills had taken the "outing out of Scouting".
24.
William Hillcourt then came out of retirement and spent a year writing and editing the 1979 edition of The Official Boy Scout Handbook, returning to the focus of Scoutcraft.
25.
William Hillcourt was regarded as a prominent figure and guide in BSA's recovery from its experiment earlier in that decade.
26.
William Hillcourt was recognized for his service to youth by the BSA with the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award on May 19,1978.
27.
William Hillcourt attended the World Conference held for the first time in Germany, an inter-American scout conference in Brazil.
28.
William Hillcourt was Troop Head and Director of the Field-School "Paramacay".
29.
William Hillcourt died at the age of 92, in Stockholm, Sweden, while traveling on a Scouting tour with Carson Buck on November 9,1992.
30.
William Hillcourt is buried with his wife Grace in St Joseph's Cemetery in Mendham Borough, New Jersey, United States.
31.
William Hillcourt's writings are still used within the Scouting movement and his material continues to be reprinted in Scouting magazine.
32.
William Hillcourt wrote numerous articles for Boys' Life and Scouting magazines, including a column aimed at patrol leaders under the by-line of "Patrol Leader Green Bar Bill".