The Paxinos Cross
Written by Jocelyn Christensen
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On a crisp Good Friday morning in 1961, a small band of Boy Scouts from Explorer Troop 250 began their ascent up Paxinos Mountain in Irish Valley. They climbed up a small steep path for over a mile carrying nails and raw lumber to erect a symbol of their faith - a 14-foot tall cross that would be visible to motorists traveling through Shamokin on Route 61 and to the surrounding community for miles around. |
"Of all the goofy things we did as kids, this was just one goofy thing that actually worked out," says Ron Miller, son of the man whose idea it was to put up the cross: Scoutmaster Johnny Miller. Ron, who now lives in Texas, recalls hauling heavy 2-by-12 wood beams up the steepest part of the mountain - a feat he chalks up to youth and sheer tenacity. "We weren't going to be told that we couldn't do it!" adds Miller.
Fellow Scout George Nye of Danville recalls they built the cross using materials that had been anonymously donated and generously loaned. In order to make the cross visible at night, the boys employed good old-fashioned thriftiness and ingenuity. "We didn't have generators, so I convinced my dad to let us have two headlights and a car battery. We rigged them up to illuminate the cross. It worked great," Nye says with a laugh, "but I had to climb the mountain every couple of days to replace the battery." "We didn't do it to earn a merit badge," explains former Scout Gary Lewis of Danville. "We were just a bunch of boys out for an adventure." "I don't think any of us envisioned what it would mean to us years later," adds fellow Scout Marty Reigel.
For more of this story read it in the current magazine
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