Scouts to buy Melita Island

Today is the deadline for a Boy Scout campaign to raise $1.5 million for the purchase of an island on Flathead Lake, and it appears that target will be met "by the skin of our teeth," the campaign chairman said Thursday afternoon.

With money going to several campaign organizers, it was unclear exactly how much had been collected by Thursday afternoon for the purchase of Melita Island for use as summer scout camp, said Larry Shadow, chairman of the capital campaign.

Doug Anderson, the campaign's fund-raising director, said less than $50,000 needed to be raised by the end of Thursday, and another rush of mail was expected to meet the balance as a result of more news coverage in Missoula.

Anderson and Shadow said they are confident the target would be met and a formal offer would be tendered for the island today.

"We're going to make it, but it is going to be by the skin of our teeth - assuming that we don't get another large donor," Shadow said from his home in Missoula.

The Melita Island campaign appeared to be stalled beyond hope just a couple weeks ago, until an anonymous couple from Western Montana donated $1 million toward the cause. News accounts of that single contribution jump-started the campaign, fueling waves of contributions. With the million dollar donation in hand, the campaign needed to raise about $250,000 in additional money.

"We've had an absolutely wonderful response. It's just been really gratifying," Shadow said.

"In today's mail alone, I had 22 checks in there. And yesterday, I had $67,350 worth," said Doug Anderson, the campaign's fundraising director earlier this week. "It has just exploded."

Anderson said he received checks with smaller, much appreciated donations, and he received a $25,000 contribution from the Mary Bogue Foundation. Bogue is a Pebble Beach, Calif., resident with a part-time residence on Flathead Lake.

Anderson said Bogue was staying at her seasonal home on Flathead Lake during the Christmas holiday when she read about the Melita Island campaign in the Inter Lake.

"From when that article came out … it has just exploded," Anderson said.

Shadow stressed that efforts to raise money will continue, largely because the capital campaign, as originally planned, intended to raise a total of $3 million, with half the money going toward purchasing the 65-acre island and the other half being used for infrastructure improvements at Melita Island and other Montana Boy Scout camps.

Leaders with the Montana Council of Boy Scouts held a teleconference earlier this week, agreeing to proceed with the purchase of the island under an agreement reached with the island's owner, Fred Cox, a former Boy Scout who has supported the island's use as a scout camp over the last few summers.

That process, Shadow explained, will involve presenting the Cox family with a letter of intent to purchase on Friday. Then a title review will get under way and the transaction must be closed within 30 days, according to the agreement with Cox.

"We want to express extreme gratitude to the Cox family, because without their generous offer to sell the island none of this would be possible," Shadow said.

Technically, the 30-day period until closing will allow more time for fund-raising, Shadow said, but he stressed that the Dec. 31 deadline had to be met.

"If we did not have the cash in hand we would not be able to purchase the island, period," said Shadow, noting that the financially struggling Montana Council probably would not have proceeded with the transaction. "That is a very real deadline."

For more information on the Melita Island campaign, contact Larry Shadow at 406-626-0706 or Doug Anderson at 406-721-7911.