David Dukeman - For Adult Service to Orca Lodge

Dave first became an Arrowmen in the Los Angeles area where he received the Vigil honor. When he moved to Eureka with his family to manage the College of the Redwoods Bookstore it was only natural he became a part of Scouting and the Order of the Arrow on the North Coast.

Dave cares! He really cares about the Chapter, the Lodge, the Section, the Region, National and anything BSA. And most of all, he cares about the individual Arrowmen....even when they don't realize it or care themselves. It's in his blood. Don't ever try to come between anything Dave cares about. He is never afraid to speak out if he sees a better way or something is amiss. He is legendary in making his point via late night conversations that often lasted several hours…or more.

In 2002, Dave finally became the Orca Lodge Adviser. The only surprise of Dave becoming Adviser, was that it took so long. From the beginning when he participated in the formation of the merged Lodges, he had served as the right, the left and at times the head of the lodge already. Dave was to set a model on how to lead a lodge. He always seemed to be everywhere, never missing events. The lodge always seemed to find a way to achieve Quality Lodge status and churned out year after year of Section Leadership in youth as well as adults. Dave's legacy was and is his Boys'. Any of the youth who served as Lodge Chief, or for that matter any officer in the Lodge became loyal to Dave, willing to run through flaming hoops for anything the Lodge or the Order needed. Many times a young man showed up at a Lodge or Section function and delivered a great candidates speech. At first there was shock, as that youth who hadn't been able to order a pizza, was now an accomplished speaker. As the years rolled by it came to be expected that when a youth delivered a great speech, he must have been working with the speech doctor. That is, Dr. Dave.

During this time Dave was also instrumental in serving as the Section W-3B Trading Post Adviser, whereby he turned a sleepy little operation into a money making venue with a broad variety of products available for sale. He recruited and trained a capable team of youth and adults and greatly expanded what a trading post was and could be.

In 2008 when Dave was all but forced to retire, he didn't want to..."I'm not ready yet" he stated over and over. There is so much more to do! And in fact Dave has continued in his "retirement" to mentor and produce upcoming generations of youth in the OA.

Perhaps his crowning achievement to date is his son Matt Dukeman, but that's a whole other story!