If possible, hold this event outdoors. Set up wooden picnic tables (or boards across sawhorses). Provide bales of hay and blankets to sit on. Start a large campfire, or bring charcoal grills. Ask everyone to dress in western clothes and to fill their pockets with useful items for pioneers.

Activity

• Survival. Divide into teams. Explain that they are pioneering in the Wild West and you want to see who is prepared. When the leader calls out an object (jackknife, bandanna, can opener, matches, safety pin, lip salve, nail clippers, comb, etc.), team members search their pockets to find it. When they locate the object, one team member brings it to the leader. Total the number of items found.
• Courier. Divide into teams. Give each team a large pad of paper and marker. One person from each team is the courier. Couriers go to the leader for a word or phrase and then run back to their teams to draw it. Couriers may not speak. See which team guesses the item first. Team members take turns being couriers.
• Foxes and Rabbit. The group sits in a circle. Give them three balls; one ball is smaller and a different color than the other two. The two larger balls are the foxes; the small ball is the rabbit. The object is for a fox to catch the rabbit. Players pass the balls around the circle to chase the rabbit or avoid being caught with it. The rabbit may be passed in any direction or tossed across the circle. Foxes may switch directions, but may be passed only to players next to each other. Players caught with a fox and rabbit at the same time receive a point.
• Rattlesnake. The group forms a circle, called the watering hole. Choose two players to be rattlesnakes, give each a rattle, and blindfold them. One is chosen to tag the other, who tries to avoid being caught. They locate each other by rattling. When one rattles, the other must immediately respond by rattling. The pursuer, however, may initiate a rattle only five times. Set a time limit for each pair to play. Those forming the watering hole keep the blindfolded players from stepping out and may also change the shape of the watering hole.
• Songfest. Choose pioneer and cowboy songs, and old familiar hymns.
• Testimony. Before the event, ask one parent and one club leader to give their testimonies.

Refreshments

Grill hamburgers. Make squaw corn by adding fried bacon, onion, and green pepper to corn. Serve cookies for dessert, as well as lemonade, iced tea and coffee.

Portions of this special event are adapted from Parties and Special Events,
a Pioneer Clubs resource.