Who
started Pathfinders? The short answer is that no one person did, but rather
that a diverse group of youth-focused, God-loving, ministry-minded individuals
in various location created "Pathfinder-like" clubs in various
locations that eventually grew into the ministry we now know as Pathfinders.
The
first Pathfinder Club of record was in Anaheim, California directed by John
McKim and Willa Steen. This club began in the late 1920's and ran through
the 1930's. In 1944 McKim died and the Steens had moved. In 1930
Lester and Ione Martin with co-directors Theron & Ethel Johnston began a
club in Santa Ana, California. Both of these first clubs were in the
Southeastern California Conference and encouraged by Youth Director Elder Guy
Mann and his associate Laurance A. Skinner. For several years there were
no clubs of record.
In
1946 John H. Hancock, then the youth director for Southeastern California
Conference got a club going in Riverside, California. John designed the
Pathfinder triangle emblem and got a ministerial student, Francis Hunt to
direct the club. Both John and his wife Helen Hancock taught honors.
By
1947-48 Southern California Conference began having Pathfinder clubs - the
first at Glendale, with Lawrence Paulson as director. About that same
time, the Central California Conference, under the direction of Youth Director
Henry T. Bergh, began their Pathfinder program -- starting 23 clubs that first
year.
Beginning
with the God-directed program, called Pathfinder Clubs, in California, the
General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist church adopted the program.
It thus, in 1950, became an official worldwide organization of the
Adventist church, and grew rapidly.
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