Sue Wheaton

Additonal excerpts from this conversation

Scout executive strives to keep programs fresh

TH: Were you a Girl Scout?
SW: I was a Girl Scout. Like most girls, I dropped out either right before or just into junior high school. That's a typical dropout age. After fifth grade, after sixth grade, real typical drop-off because then Girl Scouting "is not cool anymore." But then when I was at Iowa, going to college, I also was a Girl Scout leader. I really had some terribly interesting experiences there, just with my leader training and the things that I learned how to do.

TH: What was your life like as a kid, going to Davenport West?
SW: Fun. I was fun. I was smart. I mean, I was in the AP (Advanced Placement) classes. I didn't study very much. You know, typical, got the brains but would rather play kind of kid. I had a good time. I have a lot of friends still. We had our 30th reunion last summer. We had a ball.

TH: What line of work were your parents in?
SW: My father was, he was like a TV repair person, only he worked for a wholesaler. We were the only ones in the neighborhood with a color TV. My mom would stay at home until I was in junior high or high school, then she got a job so she could have - not have to live her life through me. She wanted to get out of my way. I was an only child.

Sue Wheaton Age: 49 Occupation: Executive director and chief executive officer, Girl Scouts of Little Cloud Council, Dubuque. Family: Husband: Kevin Wheaton. Son: Victor Elder. Stephildren: Leigh and Eric Wheaton. Parents: Don and Del Olsen, of McAllen, Texas. Hometown: Davenport, Iowa. Education: Master of Business Administration, Western State College (Colorado), 1987. Bachelor of Science, University of Iowa, 1979. Professional associations: Girl Scouts of the USA, Tri-State Human Resource Association, Tri-State Gift Planning Council, Dubuque Area Chamber of Commerce, Leave A Legacy, Iowa Girl Scout Councils, Promise Group Steering Committee Community leadership: Rotary Club of Dubuque board, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church Personnel Committee co-chair. Hobbies: Golf, walking, biking, Canasta, tennis.

TH: You were an only child? I bet you were handful.
SW: I don't think I really was. I think I was basically a good kid. And I was not spoiled. If you want to pick a fight with me, tell me I was spoiled. So watch out.

TH: I'll mark that down: "Don't ask Sue about being spoiled." You've been at Little Cloud Council since January of '88. What things have changed regarding scouting, Girl Scouts, over that time?
SW: That's a tough one because it's been so gradual. I can say that the program has become much more contemporary. Girl Scouts USA has done a lot of homework, a lot of research, and have talked to a lot of girls - especially with the older girl program - to really make sure that it's meeting their needs. It's not a program by adults for girls. It's a program by girls and for girls. That's one of the most significant things.

TH: About this screening: You do all these backgrounds checks and check references and there's lots more paperwork involved and so on. But is anyone actually screened out because of this process?
SW: Oh, yes.

TH: Or are people sort of self-eliminating because they know they're going to go through this process?
SW: Well, that's part of it. Part of the reason you have it so that people will self-select out. You expect that. We want that to happen. We don't know how many of them are doing that. We have some suspicions, but no, there are people who are denied the ability to be a troop leader or whose ability to be a leader of girls is restricted because of something that we find out from that. Perhaps they have driving offenses that tell us you don't have the common sense that you need in order to transport girls. So, OK, you can help with this troop, but you will never have a Girl Scout in your car, transporting them anywhere. Or maybe they have financial issues. You're not going to be handling any money for Girl Scouts.

TH: So through the process, how many get kicked out in a year? One? Two? Ten?
SW: This last fall, I think we had four or five that in our opinion did not pass muster in terms of their background checks. Generally speaking, I'd say it's probably one, two, three that we find in a year that get past the self-selection point.

TH: This is a related issue, in terms of leaders, but it's a distinct issue, and that's the issue of gay and lesbian leaders. The Boy Scouts have taken a different approach in that they try to screen out gay troop leaders. The Girl Scouts, on the other hand, have said sexual orientation should not be an issue in deciding whether someone is qualified to be a troop leader. I am interested in your view on that.
SW: Well, I like the way you said it, first of all, because Girl Scouts, we don't discriminate on those bases. As a matter of fact, we really shouldn't know whether or not someone is gay or lesbian. It's not something that should come up. But we do mandate that leaders maintain a standard of conduct. One of those, of course, is not exhibiting things that are inappropriate in a troop meeting, not promoting any particular lifestyle. They do that and we're not keeping them. But if they understand that you have to maintain a certain standard of conduct, then we're fine with it and it's up to the parents and their children to talk about issues that are sensitive as those.

TH: But how far does that go? Maybe there's a partner in the same house where there might be troop meetings. Is that still within the bounds ...
SW: What they do within the troop, if they're promoting a lifestyle, then you say it's inappropriate. How we define that is really, does it make anyone uncomfortable? You shouldn't be promoting a certain religion within a Girl Scout troop meeting because we believe that issues of a religious nature are personal and ones that are meant to be dealt with by families. We believe in diversity. We think that this nation is strong because of the diversity of the people within the country in every way, shape or form. Religious, racial, ethnic. Just differences among us make us really a great nation. So Girl Scouting has to have policies that mirror that.

TH: So does that mean the Boy Scouts have it wrong?
SW: I wouldn't even begin to make any judgment about that. And I wouldn't want this part in the paper because I don't want to comment on it. We have rules in Girl Scouts that even say that if there are two leaders, they can't be from the same family, like a husband and wife. If there's a husband and wife who's a leadership team, there has to be another unrelated adult who's a leader in that troop. So we have a lot of other kinds of protections in there to make sure that kids are safe, first and foremost.

TH: But some of those rules are also in place to protect the leaders, too, so they're not subject to false accusation.
SW: Oh, absolutely. We believe that they are every bit as much to protect the good leaders, absolutely. We start first with the safety of the girls, but we also want to protect our wonderful volunteers.

TH: You report that 16 to 18 percent of girls in Grades K through 12 in this council are in your program. The national average is about 11 percent. So your K through 5 or 6 must be way up there. And then it falls off after that?
SW: That's exactly right. We probably serve about, I'm going to say it's right around 40 to 43 percent of first-, second- and third-graders as a group. Then it's going to fall off a little bit, probably to 35 or 38 percent for fourth- and fifth-graders. And it keeps going down after that - even though we've seen a huge increase in the number of girls participating in our program in junior high and high school over the last five years. "Huge" still is relative. It's still something that many girls can't get over as they go the next stage and boys become the most important thing and Girl Scouts might not be "cool" enough.

TH: So they become "boy scouts"?
SW: Yes, yes. In a lower case way.

TH: Earlier, you made passing reference to "that's not cool," where you have that falloff in participation. What things are going on to try and improve the "coolness" level of Girl Scouting with the older girls?
SW: Well, I mentioned earlier that we've gotten really way more contemporary and it was a by-girls-for-girls program. It's a program that came down through national; it's called Studio 2B. It was named by girls. It was the result of focus groups across the country with girls between 11 and 17 years old. The girls who are participating in the program have absolutely no problems. They don't think it's not cool. They think it's one of the most awesome things they've gotten to participate in. As a matter of fact, we've got some of our programs happening in the junior high schools' after-school programs. There are girls who have actually come up to us and said they're excited about being Girl Scouts. We thought we had to keep it from them a little bit, that you're being a Girl Scout in this after-school program, but they said, "No, this is great. We love being a Girl Scout. We didn't think we could continue." A lot of girls and adults who are working with them in elementary school expected to quit at that age or didn't want to deal with girls who were teenagers and told them it was over at sixth grade. We've had that happen time and time again. Girls think it's over. So, we have the "not cool," but we also have the issue of some thinking that they don't have the opportunity to continue on in Girl Scouts.

TH: Sewing is cool again.
SW: Sewing is really cool again. There's kind of a resurgence with women, too, about knitting and making those scarves and things. I haven't quite gotten into it yet, but it kind of fits, I suppose.

TH: Now one program specifically is intended to prepare girls, help them anticipate motherhood and hopefully forestalling motherhood until a later age...
SW: Until they're ready for the responsibility.

TH: Briefly, what's that program all about?
SW: Baby Think It Over is not a Girl Scout program. It's a program from another company. It's used in high schools across the country. It's used in high schools in Dubuque. It's really designed to give a girl an opportunity to see what requirement are made of her if she was really a mother. And these babies are just cool. It gives the experience of what a really baby requires. Girls very often think that having a baby would be more like having a puppy and it'll love me unconditionally and my life will be wonderful and happy and roses and all these things. And it's not like we don't want to think that having a baby is a wonderful thing, because it is, but we want them to have a realistic idea of what kind of demands it'll place on their time. So these girls take the babies on Friday nights. They start with an orientation program where they go over a variety of things.

TH: But these are dolls that have computer chips.
SW: They're computers. They're amazing computers. They record the amount of, if there's any abuse or neglect, the amount of time the baby cries and is left unattended. They have sensors on the diapers so when the baby cries that it wants its diaper changed, you have to take one diaper off and put the other diaper on or it knows that you didn't change its diaper. It has sensors on the bottles that come with it so that it knows how long you feed the baby. If it's not long enough, it's going to cry again. Heaven forbid you let the head drop of the baby, because that baby's going to cry and need comfort for quite some time. These babies go home on Friday nights and they come back on Sunday nights and our response from the girls, for the most part, is that they absolutely love these babies, but boy they can't wait for them to be turned off. They have had an experience that they don't care to duplicate. It has opened doors for conversation between parents and girls as a result of having had a weekend with this baby. It's pretty taxing on the parents at home, too. And the other family members. It's really a broadening experience and reminds them that they should wait. Girls tell us through pre-tests and post-tests that they increased the age at which they first anticipate having a child by two to three years from this program. And parents are overwhelmingly supportive.

TH: I heard one go off in church not long ago.
SW: Yeah, that's the thing. The kids have to provide the care, too. They can't hand it to their mom and go off to the dance on Friday night or the football game ...

TH: Why not?
SW: Because they're the ones who have to provide the care for the babies.

TH: But the computer doesn't record that?
SW: Mm, hmm. Because they've got a wristband on them that when the baby cries, they have to link it up with the baby before they provide attention to it. So it really is tied directly to the girl.

TH: Changing the subject. How important is the cookie sale to the Girl Scouts, nationally and in this council?
SW: Well, I don't know that I can answer nationally, but they're 50 percent of the operating budget of Little Cloud Council. So, the sale of cookies is critically important. But the part I like best about it - and I'm fairly passionate about this - is that we're the only youth organization that I'm aware of - besides the Boy Scouts - who take kids and say, "What do you want to do, what are your goals?" And then connect those goals to reality. Not by handing them what they need to make the goals, but by having them do the steps it takes to achieve those goals. So the cookie sales is one of those steps. It's the "give a man a fish or teach him how to fish" scenario. I don't see that happening a lot. And I see in this world, more and more, because of time-deficit adults and kids, that we're more likely to give - "Here's the money, here's whatever you need. Now you go and have fun." We connect the dream with how you actually achieve them on your own. The lessons that come out of that are the most valuable.

TH: So, the way the sales program is supposed to work is not to have mom and dad take the sheets to work.
SW: No. There are some families that are able to do that effectively and they are able to do that by making sure that the girls are somehow connected at work that they're selling to. Whether they allow their daughters to come into their workplace or whether they make sure the girls not only prepare the cookies to be delivered by writing thank-you notes. You can't effectively incorporate the experience of selling in your workplace, but you really do have to take the time to involve the girl in the sale. You know, the people who buy the cookies, they really would prefer to see the girl. That's why people buy Girl Scout cookies.

TH: How much money are we talking about?
SW: Well, we sell 170,000 boxes of cookies. So $340,000, approximately.

TH: Sometimes, people who enjoy say working with kids, say in a Girl Scout setting, end up moving up the ranks to where they're not dealing with girls anymore, they're not connected. How do you, as the executive for this big organization, how do you stay connected with your clients?
SW: Through my staff and through the other volunteers. It just takes a good story. I mean, I get told stories. That's all it takes for me to want to keep doing what I do. But see, I like what I do. I like the administrative end. That's why I don't need to be hands-on with the girls. I'll let those people who are really much better than I do it and then come back and tell me the stories.

TH: So, what's a good story?
SW: Oh, there are so many. My favorite comes from a time when we had paid leaders. There were a couple of schools downtown that couldn't find parents who were able or capable of being Girl Scout leaders. We asked some of our best Girl Scout leaders if they would go down there, we could pay their stipend, to be the leaders. She had a second grade troop of Brownie Girl Scouts for Audubon School. They decided that they were going to go to the arboretum to fly kites and to look for signs of spring. These girls had never been on a field trip. They'd never been to the arboretum. The leader bought kite kits and they assembled their kite kits. I mean, 99-cent kite kits. How simple a thing. They'd never flown a kite. So everything was going perfectly. The girls were flying their kites, the day was gorgeous and one little red-headed girl was over there with her eyes squeezed shut and her fists clinched and her whole body all tensed up. And the leader thought something was wrong and said, "What's the matter?" That girl said, "Nothing's the matter. It's just simply the best day of my entire life and I'm trying to remember every moment of it." I've told that story a lot over the last few years, and I've had more Girl Scout leaders who have come up to me afterwards and said, "I have the same story." It's not about kites, it's not about the Arboretum, but it is about a girl who said this is this best day of my entire life. I mean, you can't get much better than that.