LAWTON – After being closed for a year, the Laura Fields Scout Service Center and Scout Shop is open for business again.
Boy Scouts, Scouting leaders and local off icials flocked to the service center at 620 Cache Road in Lawton recently to celebrate the grand reopening of the remodeled building.
The original building, which was constructed in 1964, had not been updated since the late 1970s, said Building Chairman Max Sasseen.
“Everything about it was old,” he said in a n interview following the ceremony. “But there was a plumbing backup that flooded the building – put a couple of inches of water in the whole building – and so that was a great time to decide we should go ahead and fix all of the building.”
The remodeling project cost about $150,000, Sasseen said. Funding came from a variety of sources, including insurance, the McMahon Foundation, the Laura Fields Trust and individual donations. Serving the region For several decades, the service center has provided resources for Scouting families across the region, said Jeff Woolsey, Scout executive and CEO of the Boy Scouts’ Last Frontier Council.
“Literally, hundreds of thousands of people have gone through the Scouting program in southwest Oklahoma,” he said. “This service center has been the place where they come to buy their uniforms, where they come for meetings, where they come to organize.”
Woolsey said about a year ago, someone called to r eport that a backed-up sewer had flooded the building, making it inoperable Scouting leaders decided to close the building for remodeling, and Woolsey contacted Sasseen to take charge of the project.
“Max said, ‘Yes,’ thank goodness, and he pulled a committee of folks together to make it happen,” Woolsey said. “I’m sure we’re all going to get to walk through, if you haven’t already, to see it. They’ve done a magnificent job.”