Expand<\/a><\/p>\nLBCC will say goodbye to the historic stadium during another special event at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9, to both commemorate the iconic venue and break ground on its successor. Besides the groundbreaking ceremony, Wednesday\u2019s event will also feature a video with talks by athletic and community leaders.<\/p>\n
One of the most memorable events at the stadium occurred in 1956 when Roy Rogers rode in on Trigger to an overflow crowd.<\/p>\n
Rogers received a standing ovation from spectators who were there to see the cowboy movie star and the start of Scout-O-Rama, a festival showcasing the skills, programs and spirit of the Boy Scouts to the public, according to Paul Muehlebach, longtime Boy Scout historian.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a 7-year-old Cub Scout when I saw Roy Rogers and Trigger,\u201d Muehlebach said. \u201cThat was likely the first event I attended. As such, it sure was special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Malcolm Epley, then executive editor of the Press-Telegram, wrote in a column that the Scout-O-Rama was \u201can enormous success, in every way.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 30,000 people went to Vets Stadium for the show and display of Scout crafts, which, Epley said, was \u201cone of the biggest paid-admission crowds in Long Beach history.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 5,000 boys representing more than 300 packs, troops and explorer units participated.<\/p>\n
The 1950s were a time of explosive growth in enrollment for organizations like Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts and Camp Fire because of all the Baby Boomer children born after World War II.<\/p>\n
In the weeks before each Scout-O-Rama, usually held in early June, the Scouts would go door-to-door in their neighborhoods selling tickets for just $1. Children under 18 got free admission. A percentage of the proceeds benefited the individual packs. Awards went to top sellers.<\/p>\n
In 1956, the top seller was the 55-member Cub Scout Pack 255, which met at Patrick Henry Elementary in Long Beach. They sold 894 tickets for that first Scout-O-Rama. Rogers presented them with a plaque of Trigger\u2019s shoe at the event.<\/p>\n
Gene Autry, when he was owner of the Anaheim Angels and a former western movie star himself, appeared at the Scouting event in 1962. In keeping with the western theme, so popular during this era, a circus event, not connected to Scout-O-Rama, was held at Veterans Stadium in 1950 featuring fictional cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy.<\/p>\n
As the Scouting program continued to grow, so did Scout-O-Rama, which attracted thousands of participants each year. The program\u2019s theme would usually change.<\/p>\n
During the next decade, the United States was embroiled in a race with the Soviet Union to be the first to put a man on the moon. The 1960 Scout-O-Rama reflected that with its space-age theme.<\/p>\n
The chair in charge of organizing this massive event each year was traditionally a professional or known person from the community. Fittingly, the chair of the 1960 space-themed event was Kenneth G. Farrar, who was vice president of Douglas Aircraft, the forerunner of McDonald-Douglas and then Boeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show will feature a display of the nation\u2019s leading missiles,\u201d he said at the time, \u201cincluding the Thor-Able ballistics missile.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1962, the theme was \u201cSee America First\u201d \u2014 preferably driving in a new Pontiac, if the event chair had his way. That was Mike Salta, the successful owner of the largest Pontiac dealership west of the Mississippi and one of the most successful car sellers in the country. His flagship store was at 1545 Long Beach Blvd.<\/p>\n
Besides Gene Autry as a special guest that year, Tony Dow, who played the older brother on the hit TV show \u201cLeave it to Beaver,\u201d was also present.<\/p>\n
In 1969, the event kicked off with a parade from Del Amo Boulevard down Clark Avenue into the stadium. In 1970, O.J. Simpson, then a rising star with the Buffalo Bills and long before his infamous murder trial, was the parade grand marshal of Scout-O-Rama.<\/p>\n
In 1971, the program shifted to ecology, another reflection of the country\u2019s changing focus.<\/p>\n
Every year, the city generously allowed the Scouts to use the stadium rent-free for their event, but they were responsible for operating costs such as utilities, labor and clean up. (The city sold the stadium to Long Beach City College in 1987 for just $1.)<\/p>\n
Scout-O-Rama\u2019s last year at Veterans Memorial Stadium was 1972. A special draw that year was a moon rock brought back by American astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon in July 1969. The special exhibit was on loan from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<\/p>\n
Scout-O-Rama moved to the athletic field at Cal State Long Beach in 1973 and has had different locations after that, including Heartwell Park, Lakewood High School and the lawn area of Long Beach City College.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s event has been rechristened the Long Beach Youth Adventure Festival, Muehlebach said. It will take place on Sept. 26 at the Camp Fire facility at Carson Street and Los Coyotes Diagonal.<\/p>\n
The Wednesday groundbreaking ceremony, meanwhile, will allow guests and community leaders to bid a final farewell to historic Veterans Memorial Stadium, which has served Long Beach so well for more than 75 years. Those attending will also be able to sign the stadium\u2019s walls for later use.<\/p>\n
There in spirit, will also be the 17 Long Beach servicemen who made a poignant request in 1945 that the city honor the area\u2019s World War II dead with a living memorial stadium.<\/p>\n
Their request was honored \u2014 and will be celebrated on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long Beach would have been a dull place without the excitement created by events at Veterans Memorial Stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,23,131,133,132,137,741],"class_list":["post-457567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-rich-archbold-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Scouts](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-ARCHBOLD-COL-0709-01.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Scouts](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-ARCHBOLD-COL-0709-03.jpg?w=620\")
<\/p>\n![\"Western](\"https:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LPT-L-ARCHBOLD-COL-0709-02.jpg?w=620\")
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