Culver Summer Camps Tuxis was crazy back in 1920

The Tuxis Program has long been a crucial part of Culver Summer Camps, providing every Culver Upper Camper the opportunity to earn a medal to wear with his or her dress A by completing a series of merit-badge style accomplishments as set forth by their Culver Summer Camps Tuxis Director. Third classmen may earn their bronze tuxis medal, second classmen have their silver to work towards, while first classmen set their sights on the gold tuxis. Each of these medals is progressively more difficult to earn with the understanding that moving up in rank at Culver means you have to perform at a higher level.

But how hard is it to earn you Tuxis medal? And how have the Tuxis standards fared over the years? Should there be more testing involved? less testing? more sports? less? What about those pesky Tuxis essays people work on, or their Tuxis collages.

I’m curious to hear what you think about the general level of challenge to the TUXIS program. In fact I’m starting a new poll on the front page about it, so weigh in with a vote there and your comments in the thread in Main Guard.

Finally to adress the questions about changing Tuxis standards I present to you an honest goodness 1920 Silver Tuxis Sheet that I tracked down using our new Ebay section just last week. What do you think of the point requirements? Any of them stand out? Let’s take a look…

First thing we notice here is that this thing is ooooooold. 86 years old to be exact. And its in great shape and appears to have never been used. One thing I really like about this front page to the leaflet is how it refers to the Tuxis program as being for “All-Around Development.” Tuxis was about that back in 1920 and it’s still all about that in 2006. It’s neat to see a program hang around for 86 years and manage to keep to its initial purpose. Kudos to Culver!

And here we go with the meat of this: the points.

According to the introduction the 1920 points were grouped into Athletic, Naval or Cavalry, Aquatic, Military, and Academic. Today’s Tuxis program uses Athletic, Military, Citizenship, Academic, and then Naval, Aviation, or Cavalry. Not so far off really. Just lop off Aquatic and add in Citizenship and it’s pretty much the same.

How does the 18 point requirement compare to the 2006 Silver Tuxis requirements. How many points do second classmen at Culver need today? I don’t recall. Anyone? Let’s break down the points by section:

Athletics

Holey Moley some of these requirements look tough. While the modern Tuxis sheet awards points for pretty much just showing up and participating in athletics back in 1920 they spelled out exactly what “proficiency” meant at Culver. Very cool, though considerably more demanding. To put these standards into perspective let’s draw upon my (admittedly sketchy) memory of current track times and distances as well as this sheet of results from the week 3 1980 Men’s track meet for the shotput point.

In 1920, to earn the shotput point you had to throw 28 ft as a senior. I want to say (don’t recall exactly) that 28 feet would have placed top 3 in any senior track meet last summer (Baker, Bourgraf, am I right on this or wrong?). The men’s sr. shotput winner at that track meet threw a 12lb shot 49 feet. Hmm…Never mind then. Although if I’m right on the 28 feet thing from last summer that would be very interesting…How do some of the other requirements look?

There are still a decent number of team points however notice how they all require your team to actually win the event you’re playing or competing in? Today, to encourage camper participation we give points for participating in at least 3 games with a team. Perhaps more humane but also perhaps less exciting? Dunno.

It’s also interesting that sailing, crew, and riding are lumped in the athletics category of points.
Aquatic
Zak Mirkowski and I (and the few other swimmers out there) are probably the only people who’d get excited to see an entire category devoted to swimming. Neat. Back in 1920 you had to be able to swim and could even earn a point for demonstrating resussitation techniques. I guess thats not far off from our “complete lifeguard training” point on the current sheet.

Me wonders how many people could actually complete a 250 yard swim at camp these days…

Military

Culver didn’t screw around with military stuff back in 1920 as evidenced by the pretty high standards listed here for military proficiency. 100 percent in discipline for 2 weeks, 100 percent attendance…spiffy. Notice there’s only 1 test you had to take back then? Also there’s a real emphasis on actual military know-how, Army info and drill team stuff as well.

Cavalry

I’m not too familiar with the current cavalry tuxis points so I’m not sure I can add much here other than to say that these points look awfully specific and detailed, in keeping with the rest of the sheet.

Academics

Some of these are great. Handing in a brief of a sermon? How great is that? Might be a good way to get kids to pay attention in chapel. I really like that all the papers, posters, and grades required for the campers to hand in have to be very high quality, “excellent” or “exceptional.” High standards lead to high performance.

Band

Looks like the tossed a few band points on to the end to give them a chance to earn their medals. Guess they needed special help back in 1920…not much has changed eh? (wink, wink)

So there ya have it folks, a look at an actual Tuxis sheet from 1920. They had much stricter and more specific ideas about what qualified as “excellence” back then, which I really do appreciate. At the same time you wonder how many kids were left feeling out of it at camp because they couldn’t match up. Perhaps the idea is to give them at least a goal to shoot for.

I’ve certainly found this interesting and I hope you have too. It’s given me a lot to think about with regards to how I counsel company 2 this summer. We’ll see how it goes.

Leave a Comment | Find more Culver-bilia on Ebay