DISCLAMER:
Santee Lodge It is not officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of the USA or the World Organization of Scout Movements.
There are a couple of interesting traditions which grew out of the design of fellowship patches. The first is called the “teardrop” set of patches. Beginning with the 1974 Fall Fellowship and with every six years after that the design of the patch was in a small diamond resembling a teardrop. Traditions are a strange thing. John Outlaw liked the design of the 1974 “teardrop” so he designed another for the 1980 Fall Fellowship, six years following the first one. The tradition continued in 1986 and then again in 1992.
There are two patches which say “1980 Spring”. The one which has a diamond shape and a flag in the background is the 1980 Spring Fellowship patch designed by Ray Drew. The round patch with a blue background is actually the 1981 Spring Fellowship patch. When the lodge executive committee was deciding on designs for the 1981 Spring patch Duncan Hart submitted his old design that had 1980 on it. The committee passed the design but the patch company failed to change the date on the design to designate it as the 1981 Spring Fellowship patch.
Another unique tradition began with the fellowship held in the fall of 1983. In conjunction with a beautiful autumn colored patch design by Greg Vaughn, the name of the fellowship for that year was changed to the autumn fellowship. Ten years later the lodge held another autumn fellowship in 1993. This patch is also a part of the 55th anniversary set.
A real unique set that the lodge had with its fellowship patches started in the summer of 1989. The set also included the Fall 1989 and Spring 1990 patches. Each of the patches was in the shape of a parakeet perching on an imaginary arrow. When put together the first and last patch in the series are birds facing in towards the center Fall 1989 patch which is a parakeet with outstretched wings. The set was designed by Paul Gowder and Chip Payne.
The year 2000 saw a completely different twist on the idea of a lodge fellowship set. Acting adviser David Lee choose to use the same patch design for four different events. According to members of the executive committee the Work Day patch (a first ever for Santee Lodge) had a blood red background in honor of the Death Flap that came out after the lodge was shut down.
A modern classic is the 2003 “Night Vision” set designed by Jay Carlson. Each of the three fellowship patches are chevron segments that fit underneath the 65th Anniversary flap. The next year Nick Newton and Kyle Hughes changed things up with a winter banquet patch to launch a new cartoon character set. This four patch set featured a cartoon parakeet in different designs. The idea of a winter banquet has stuck and there has been one issued every year since.
The lodge has two other events which deserve attention. On years that the lodge has hosted the Dixie Fellowship there has usually been a Dixie Set-up Fellowship in mid April to set up camp for the event. This event is considered a fellowship because it lasts an entire weekend and lodge flaps are sold. Dixie Set-up patches were issued in 1983 and in 1991. The 1983 patch is a smaller version of the Dixie patch of that year. The 1991 patch is in the shape of a flowing Confederate battle flag with a parakeet on it.
There is a unique fellowship that although not issued by Santee is a part of any complete Santee collection. In 1983 following There is a unique fellowship that although not issued by Santee is a part of any complete Santee collection. In 1983 following the break-up of old Section SE-3B Itibapishe Iti Hollo Lodge 188 invited Santee brothers to a joint fellowship. However, only a half dozen Santee arrowmen made the trip to Camp John J. Barnhardt. The patch for that weekend is a unique blend of the two lodges totems. Although it was issued by Itibap it is very sought after by 116 collectors.
The lodge has had several fellowship “sets.” A set of fellowship patches consists of three patches, usually spring, summer, and fall. To be considered a set they must also have some common design feature to link them together. Sets are important because they require prior planning by the executive committee in order to design and approve at least three fellowship patches at once.
The first set was with the fortieth anniversary of the lodge in 1978. The series was designed by Greg Vaught and each patch was in the shape of an arrowhead. Vaught used the different parakeets on each of the patches. The spring fellowship patch has a white background and features the bird from the Ordeal flap of the day. The summer fellowship patch has a black background and has the bird of the Vigil flap. The fall fellowship patch has a blue background and has the parakeet that was found on the black embroidered flap. In this way he used the colors of the three flap system in order and used the distinctive parakeets that the lodge had used so far with its memorabilia.
This set was copied for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the lodge in 1988 on the suggestion of Mac McLean. The set covered the three fellowships patches in that year. The background colors were kept the same although the parakeet found on the Current flap was used for all of patches in the set. The set was also associated with the anniversary arrowhead which was issued that summer as a replica of the original arrowhead.
In 1993 the lodge came out with a loose set of patches for the 55th anniversary of the lodge. The set was inspired by the service arrowhead designed by Andrew Myers and issued beginning with the spring of 1993. The O.A. Week patch for that year had a blue background and the bird from the service arrowhead. It was followed by the summer fellowship patch which had a white background and the same bird. The autumn fellowship patch of that year had a red background and completed the set. When put together the set is made up of arrowheads pointing in four different directions.
For the 60th anniversary the executive committee choose to continue the tradition of fellowship sets. The patches were produced by the Stadri Company and are notable because of the poor quality of the patches. The summer fellowship patch was not even fully embroidered. The traditional colors were followed with this set.
The first fellowship items were neckerchiefs. During this time neckerchiefs were popular among the people making decisions in the lodge. All of these neckerchiefs were silk screened with color designs. The first one appeared in the summer of 1959. The date is not included in the design. This neckerchief is also unusual because there was not another one for 13 years. The lodge made subsequent neckerchiefs for the 1972 Summer Fellowship, 1972 Fall Fellowship, and the 1973 Summer Fellowship. There was also a staff neckerchief made for the 1973 Summer Fellowship. Only a dozen of these staff neckerchiefs were made and they were given out to the 8 lodge officers and 4 other people.
Santee Lodge also has a long tradition of issuing memorabilia for its lodge weekend gatherings called fellowships. These fellowship items make up the bulk of Santee Lodge memorabilia that exists. The items are important because they represent events which actually happened. Unlike lodge flaps, which are used to distinguish arrowmen by lodge and sometimes level in the order, fellowship patches are worn as temporary insignia to commemorate attendance at an event. There is much more diversity in design with the fellowship items. However, a lot of the symbolism of the lodge and Order of the Arrow is still found in them.
Early Fellowship Patches
The lodge moved to making lodge fellowship patches in the fall of 1973. In the summer of 1973 the lodge ran short on the neckerchiefs and some people were upset that they didn’t get theirs. A vote was taken during a lodge business meeting deciding to go with fellowship patches instead of neckerchiefs. Patches were easier to produce as well as being popular with the boys.
Following the vote taken at the summer business meeting of 1973, the first fellowship patch came out in the fall of 1973. The patch says “35th Anniversary” and is an arrowhead shape. From this fellowship up until the spring of 1978 the lodge did not make a patch for every fellowship. The next fellowship patch came out in the summer of 1974. It is called the “Big Red” because of its large pentagon shape and color. This is actually the rarest fellowship patch for collectors.
Fellowship patches followed erratically in the subsequent years. The reason for this was really poor planning. If someone came to a meeting with a design then the executive committee would vote to have a patch. Several times no designs were submitted and therefore no patch was made. There was a patch for the 1973 Fall Fellowship, 1974 Summer Fellowship, 1974 Fall Fellowship, the 1975 Fall Fellowship, both the 1976 Summer and Fall Fellowships, and the 1977 Spring Fellowship. Beginning in 1978, the fortieth anniversary of the lodge, a patch was made for all of the fellowships held during the year.
