By Grant Ingalls
Review Special Writer
Lake Orion’s Chuck Ring, 91, recently received his 45-year year district award merit pin for actively participating in the Boy Scouts.
He received the pin at a Boy Scout dinner in Canterbury Village.
Ring, a Pontiac native, said he didn’t expect to receive the honor.
“I was surprised to get the pin. I was sitting at the dinner table when they announced it and everyone just started clapping.”
A veteran of World War II, Chuck is a charter representative for Troop 128 in the Detroit Area Council.
To receive such an honor one must be active in the Boy Scouts for over thirty years. From there every five years one reports paperwork to Texas, where pins are allotted in five-year increments.
Not only did Ring receive a pin from the Detroit Area Council, but also the former Clinton Valley Council.
“I believe I’m the only person to receive two,” Ring said.
The two councils have now merged, with Detroit absorbing Clinton Valley.
Serving in World War II, from 1943-1946 as a Marine, Ring participated in battles in many parts of the South Pacific.
For his last two months in the service he was awaiting possible deployment into Japan, when the war ended following the atomic bomb dropped on the city of Nagasaki.
He left the region on Christmas morning 1945, to return to San Diego. Crossing timelines, he experienced another Christmas in San Diego.
From there he later rode a train to Chicago and traveled home to Michigan with a surprise return to his parents on January 26, 1946.
Today, Chuck is a Boy Scout District Committee Member at Large, attending meetings and overlooking troops.
Active involvement in the community is what keeps Ring feeling young.
“The key to living long is you have to stay active,” he said.
Along with keeping up with and mentoring Boy Scouts, Ring has been working for the past twenty-three years in the mailroom of Sherman Publications and has been delivering The Lake Orion Review on a weekly route.
Ring and his wife of 68 years, Vivian, live on five acres of land. Ring keeps up with his home and lawn with the same determination he’s had his entire life.
“Once a Marine, always a Marine,” Ring said.