ARAPAHO 2000 is built upon the foundation of work spanning three decades and first published over twenty years ago by the authors of

ABOUT ARAPAHO

When the Arapaho series started, with Arapaho I - A History of Scouting Through Insignia in 1976, one of our objectives was to establish a new, higher quality in publications for the history buff and collecting community. We believed then, as we do to this day, that quality must be demonstrated both in terms of the accuracy and integrity of the information provided, as well as in the actual presentation of the research and information in a useful way.

ARAPAHO 2000 is built upon the foundation of work spanning three decades and first published over twenty years ago by the authors of ARAPAHO II -- A HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF THE ARROW THROUGH INSIGNIA. Published in 1979, Arapaho II resulted from the collaborative efforts of the authors of Arapaho II: Albertus Hoogeveen, Richard H. Breithaupt, Jr. and David C. Leubitz. It was subsequently updated by printed supplements published in 1984 and 1989. By the early 1990’s, Arapaho Software, a partnership between Richard H. Breithaupt, Jr., Albertus Hoogeveen and Douglas E. Beaudoin, moved the hobby into the computer age with Arapaho II On Disk!!, a DOS-based software package, and several printed updates to the old Arapaho II series. The culmination of it all is Arapaho 2000.

Documenting and recording significant historical facts and information about Order of the Arrow lodges and issues is one of the reasons Arapaho II was written. In the course of our research, and through the cooperation and collaborative efforts of many, we hoped to define and instill a common standard to the collecting of Scout insignia. Arapaho II brought a convention, a common point of reference, to how collectors as a group referred to insignia, its characteristics, and what made one patch different from another. In creating the Arapaho numbering system it was our hope that, universally adopted, it would provide the collecting community a valuable and useful point of common reference in pursuit of the hobby. We succeeded beyond our wildest expectations.

The Only Reference Based on Official BSA Records
Information contained in Arapaho’s Lodge histories, including lodge names, totems, meanings, and charter activity, are for the most part based directly on records of the National Council, Boy Scouts of America. Perhaps it is because only the authors of the Arapaho series were fortunate to have access to the Order of the Arrow’s official records that our reporting is so universally accepted and reprinted by others.

As circumstance had it, shortly after we completed our research the BSA's OA archives were destroyed. Thus, because the official records were destroyed, our research is today the sole authoritative source other publications have relied upon for this information, including original charter date, charter activity and previously unknown lodge names. Ours is the primary research they use, whether given proper credit by others or not. Such wide acceptance is gratifying and we are indeed proud to have been able to preserve this information for the historical record.

To learn more about the authors, click here: Author Bios

To learn more, click here: Methodology

The Standard Reference
The acceptance and popularity of the Arapaho series, the concepts we tried to quantify in writing, and the numbering system has been gratifying. Bid sales, trades and discussion, by rule rather than exception, utilize the Arapaho series as the standard reference point. As authors, we are proud that the years, indeed decades, of hard work is benefiting others in a useful way.

Arapaho 2000, like its predecessors in the Arapaho series, is a “work in progress”. Each was built upon the foundation of releases that preceded it. As such, those who helped us anywhere along the way played a role in where we are today. Without the cooperation of many people, our content would not be as accurate and up to date as it is. To each and every one of them we very grateful.

A plethora of publications have followed us, many of which are very fine works. However, we share the concern expressed by many who question some more recent publications. The feeling is that in an apparent zeal to publish, to gain recognition or perhaps in an attempt to enhance the value of one's collection, some authors have sacrificed objectivity and accuracy for subjectivity, shear speculation and personal gain.

It has always been our goal that the Arapaho series would set a high standard for published works in this field, thereby ensuring that the collecting community would be provided only with fairly presented, objective and accurate information. Subjective opinion and speculation has no part in the creation or maintenance of an accurate historical record. This kind of misinformation is harmful to the collector, and the hobby itself. You can be assured that we have maintained our objectivity and have applied the same logic to all lodges to the best of our ability.

About "Copyright" Patch Images
Similar to the pervasive impact of computers and the Internet in virtually all segments of modern society, the application of copyright law in the United States has likewise evolved to embrace the digital age. When it comes to digital images on our CD-Roms, what we once thought could be copyrighted we have learned cannot be copyrighted. Copyright protection extends:

". . .only to the material contributed by the author of such work; as distinguished from the pre-existing material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the pre-existing material." 17 USC §§103(b).

Since the release of Arapaho 2000, a series of Federal cases have determined that one cannot claim copyright protection for a scanned image of artwork not of his own making. Transferring a work of art into a different medium, such as a painting to a scanned image, is not copyrightable. Digital reproductions of works of art on CD-ROM products do not infringe on copyrightability as they lack sufficient originality. You cannot copyright a digital image of a work you did not create.
This being the case, while our original images database includes a copyright notice on many of the images it contains, as images are added these new images do not bear a copyright notice.