A tribute to Randy Cline

I was deeply saddened to learn this month that Randy Cline, a legendary scouter who spent his life working and volunteering for Scouting organizations, died at the age of 76.

Randy came into my life a decade ago as an unexpected mentor.

Back in 2015, I was volunteering for the Order of the Arrow's national communications team, doing brand and design work. Randy, along with his longtime Scouting collaborator Ed Lynes, invited me to design the logo and brand identity for the centennial National Order of the Arrow Conference that year.

For me as a college student studying design (alongside journalism), this felt like a wild, incredible opportunity. My graphics would define the OA's largest national gathering, attended by some 15,000 people. I jumped in headlong, feverishly working up visual concepts to convey the conference's theme, "It Starts With Us."

As we moved from the logo to the ever-important patch design, I traded countless emails with Randy, who offered everything from specific designs tweaks to big-picture redirects. Going back through my inbox to re-read these endless threads, I smiled when I came across messages like, "Breakthrough thinking Mike. Very nice! I like it a lot."

But Randy gave me so much more than an education in patch design.

As our relationship grew in the run-up to the conference, I learned about his history of service to the OA, his visionary redesign of the National Leadership Seminar, and his steadfast allyship to LGBTQ+ people in Scouting. I saw in Randy a scouter who held the same convictions that I did, and who fought to make space in the organization for people like me, a queer man who was just taking the first tentative steps out of the closet.

As the years passed, Randy remained a great friend. He contributed to articles in this newsletter, and he's also quoted in my book. My connection to Randy, though, only scratches the surface of the impact he made on others during his life.

Ken Grimes — Friend of 54 years

When Ken Grimes met Randy Cline in the summer of 1970, his reputation preceded him.

Ken knew that Randy was an accomplished lodge- and then area-chief in the local Order of the Arrow program in Dayton, where they both lived. That summer at the Woodland Trails Scout Reservation, Randy and Ken met serving side-by-side for 9 weeks, with Randy as program director and Ken as scoutcraft director. "He and I just kind of hit it off," Ken recalled.

But what might have been a brief friendship was rekindled the following year, when Randy, by that time leading shows for the National OA Conference, recruited Ken to help out with a few musical numbers. Ken was quickly hooked by the OA shows magic, which kept him in Randy's orbit and solidified what would become a decades-long friendship.

In a display of Randy's directing talents, honed as a college theater major, Ken recalled one particular moment from a NOAC show. The youth actors were practicing a scene, and Ken could sense that something was off, but didn't know quite how to fix it. Randy popped in, observed the issue and, which just a few subtle changes to the actors' body language—an arm around a shoulder, a head leaned to the side—clicked it into place. "It looked perfect," Ken said. "That’s the kind of talent he had."

They both stayed busy as volunteers in Scouting, and their remit grew beyond conference shows. They served on the National OA Committee, and thrived as a pair who could craft top-notch training programs.

Ken was often a crucial thought partner and sounding board for Randy, who during events would return to their shared room at the end of each day and ask, "What do you think? Tell me the unvarnished truth." Ken felt like he could always be honest with feedback, good or bad. "I don’t think we ever had a cross word with each other in 54 years of friendship," he said.

Randy would end up leading the major overhaul of the OA's National Leadership Seminar, with Ken right by his side. Randy transformed NLS from a series of dry logistical trainings about how to run a lodge, into the revered leadership factory it has become today. Randy's vision could be seen in everything from the table setup, to the incorporation of engaging video content, to the iconic triangular patch.

But Ken said Randy's impact was felt most deeply by those who interacted with him personally. "Randy had this unique gift to connect with almost everybody," he said, making them feel special. Put another way: "He changed people’s lives for the better."

Craig Salazar — Friend of more than 30 years

Craig Salazar remembers being in more than a few meetings with Randy Cline when things were starting to go sideways.

Take, for example, a late-night meeting on the eve the National Order of the Arrow Conference in 2015. A conference app meant to provide schedules to all attendees was malfunctioning, and the team needed to find a new solution before the following morning's training sessions began.

“Randy is always methodical. He was always so thoughtful," Craig recalled, so it was a surprise to both of them that such an important piece of the puzzle was now missing. It was one of the few times Craig saw Randy at all rattled. But the team jumped into action and got printed schedules delivered in the wee hours before scouts woke up for a day full of events.

Craig had first met Randy in the 1980s, at an OA conference. They'd see each other here and there in the years after that, usually falling into conversation. "I was trying my best to not sound stupid in front of him, because he was so knowledgeable about everything," Craig said.

The two didn't start working together on bigger projects until the early 2000s, when Craig joined the OA National Committee. Their most notable collaboration was a redesign of the Wood Badge leadership course (a project I was also involved in, as a logo designer).

During that project, too, Randy emerged as a level-headed leader. In one particularly heated discussion, emotions erupted over a potential change to the course, and it was Randy who absorbed it all, considered it, and resolved it in a way that the whole group found inspiring. "He had a way to bring the whole thing back together," Craig said.

While Craig was often involved in projects as a manager who could move a process along, Randy contributed a creative eye and attention to detail that was just as essential. He'd stop to consider something, stare off into the distance, take his time deliberating. "I really respected the thoughtfulness" he brought to a project, Craig said. "That was what I really enjoyed more than anything."

Glenn Ault — Friend of more than 35 years

When Randy Cline and his family moved to Pennsylvania, he seized the opportunity to deepen his connection with Glenn Ault, who he had met during Glenn's term as an Order of the Arrow section chief in 1985.

Glenn, who grew up in Pennsylvania and was living in Philadelphia for medical school at the time, formed an "instant friendship" with Randy. He would travel out to Mechanicsburg to spend time with Randy's family, or take Randy's sons to back to Philly for a weekend.

It was also during medical school that Glenn received a memorable intervention from Randy. Glenn was struggling to balance school with his personal life and Scouting interests, when he received a note from his mentor. As Glenn recalled: "[He] reminded me I was exactly where I needed to be, to keep my focus, to keep my head down and work hard. Because he felt I was going to be an outstanding physician, and didn't want me to lose that perspective."

The message crystallized one of Randy's most impressive traits. "He had the uncanny ability to say very little and somehow tell you everything you needed to know," Glenn said. "He rarely told you the answer but always helped you find it."

When Glenn joined Randy on the OA National Committee in 1993, their collaborations ran the gamut, from strategic plans to leadership curricula. "Randy had this really keen interest in leadership," Glenn recalled, highlighting Randy's well-known contributions to the National Leadership Seminar.

It was actually in the NLS materials that Glenn saw some of Randy's best qualities reflected. Randy included in the training a clip from the movie "Dead Poets Society," where the boarding school’s English teacher, Mr. Keating, is trying to get young high schoolers to embrace and love poetry. "Randy was our professor Keating," Glenn said, "urging us to embrace life and not conform to the normal."

Another powerful sequence from the movie depicted Mr. Keating urging his students to "carpe diem," or "seize the day," before it was too late. "Randy always wanted us to seize the day," Glenn said. "He saw things in each and every one of us, and he knew that we were much more capable of accomplishing things that we even thought ourselves were impossible."

Glenn shared many of these memories at Randy's memorial service earlier this month. He ended his remarks reflecting on how his friend's spirit would live on.

"In the stillness, we will hear him speak to us, and he will remain an inspiration," Glenn said. "Remember he is standing behind us whispering, 'Carpe diem.'"