05/28/2026
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APRICOT FIESTA EDITION
Scooped from the Heart
The Full History of BSA Troop 81’s Apricot Ice Cream Legacy
By Kat Ritchie • With additional history from Burt Smith (Patterson Irrigator, June 12, 2025)
Patterson, California • BSA Troop 81
In the heart of Patterson, California, a tradition as golden as the fruit it’s built upon has been sweetening the Apricot Fiesta for nearly four decades. Troop 81’s apricot ice cream is more than a fundraiser. It is a living chronicle of this community’s spirit — of families who showed up, stayed up late, picked fruit by hand, and poured everything they had into something bigger than themselves. A tradition that Scoutmaster Kelly Pedron has assured continued through hard work and coordination since he has lead the Troop for the last 17 years!
A Dining Room, Some Apricots, and a Big Idea (circa 1984–1986)
The Smith family arrived in Patterson in July of 1984, and like so many who find their way to this town, they quickly discovered that community here is not a background feature — it is the whole point. When the following year’s Apricot Fiesta came around, Burt Smith noticed something that struck him as both ironic and fixable: there were no apricots at the Apricot Fiesta.
At the time, Troop 81’s primary fundraiser was a yard sale — functional but limited. Smith, Scoutmaster Ron Swift, and the Sierra family gathered in Smith’s dining room with a table full of apricots, ice cream, soda, and jelly. What followed was an evening of pure invention. They experimented with combinations until three distinct creations emerged: an apricot ice cream float, an apricot ice drink, and apricot ice cream. Ron Swift took the troop’s apricots and syrup to a local creamery and had the ice cream produced to their specifications.
“We met in my dining room with a bunch of apricots and ice cream and soda and jelly and experimented with several concoctions — ending up with an Ice Cream Float, an Apricot Ice Drink, and Apricot Ice Cream.”
— Burt Smith, Troop Committee Chairman 1984–1994, letter to the Patterson Irrigator, June 12, 2025
Ruth and Sara Smith designed a stand and signage. The scouts built the booth themselves, placing it in the location where it has stood for 39 years. The first year — around 1986 — the Scouts made the shakes, served the ice drinks, and handed up cones. Revenue tripled that of the old yard sale. The yard sale was dropped permanently. The troop had found its tradition.
The founding families of this era deserve to be remembered by name: the Sierras, the Smiths, the Hulns, the Houks, and the Shields — all rallying around Ron Swift, who understood from the beginning that a great fundraiser is only as powerful as the community spirit behind it.
The Creamery Years and the First Commercial Partnership (Early 1990s)
Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the tradition grew steadily. The San Francisco Ice Creamery in Lodi became the troop’s production partner, crafting the apricot ice cream from frozen apricot halves that Scoutmaster Swift would personally deliver. The creamery returned gallons of golden ice cream for just $10 each — a partnership that felt almost too good to last.
It was. In 2000, the creamery closed its doors, and with it went the convenient arrangement that had sustained the booth’s growth. For many organizations, that might have been the end. For Troop 81, it was a beginning.
When the Community Rallied: Making It from Scratch (2000)
Determined not to let the tradition disappear, a dedicated core of scout families made a decision that would define the next chapter: they would make the ice cream themselves. Susan and Herb Dompe — parents of Scout Stewart — stepped up. Paul and Shirley Borchardt, parents of Scouts Christopher and William, joined in. Nancy Lerno, mother of Scout Dylan, secured donated ingredients from local businesses. Ron Swift continued to lead.
That first homemade batch was a grassroots operation in every sense. Scouts picked fresh apricots, cleaned them, and froze them. Four ice cream makers churned out 30 gallons. They sold out on Saturday. They churned late into Saturday night to fill Sunday’s demand.
By every account, the homemade version was even better than what the creamery had produced. Something about the freshness of the ingredients — the just-picked fruit, the hand-crafted glaze, the care poured into every batch — made the difference.
The Freshest Ingredients: Where the Flavor Really Comes From
There is no commercial shortcut hidden in this recipe. The apricots came from Fred Lema, who lived on Del Puerto Canyon Road with two sons in Troop 81. His trees produced the bright, sun-warmed fruit that had become the soul of every batch — not grocery store apricots bred for shelf life, but the real thing: the kind that smell like summer when you split them open. Today, Del Mar has continued that tradition!
One of the ice cream’s most distinctive features is its apricot glaze, generously donated by a local farm. The purée is made fresh. The glaze is crafted in-house. Every element traces back to this community’s land and labor — a supply chain measured not in miles but in relationships.
The menu that emerged from all this care is something no commercial vendor can replicate. Cones and cups of apricot ice cream and the crowd-favorite Apricot Shake —blended into something uniquely, unapologetically Californian.
The iconic booth, built by Jim Mello and Gary Scoles, has served every one of these creations from the same location for nearly forty years.
Scaling Up: From Four Makers to Forty-Nine
As demand grew, so did the operation. Early batches were stored in the Federated Church’s freezers, then at Hank’s Deli, then in Ron Swift’s home. Production eventually moved to a certified kitchen at the Westley Firehouse, even SaveMart helped with cold storage. Today, Traína Foods is a major supporter with their commercial freezers! The infrastructure of an entire community quietly arranged itself around a troop of boys making ice cream.
Today, nearly fifty ice cream makers churn simultaneously, tended by Scouts who manage every stage of production — from purée to glaze to final churn. Production now takes place at the Patterson Senior Center, where Scouts, families, and volunteers gather two full weeks before the Apricot Fiesta to prepare the massive batch. In 2025, the troop produced 249 gallons in just ten hours. This Explosive growth and the pivots to assure this tradition continued successfully has been truly driven over recent years by three dynamic leaders: Julie Thomas, Angelica Nuno and Yolanda Marin.
Let that number settle for a moment: 249 gallons of fresh, locally sourced, hand-crafted apricot ice cream, made by young people who showed up early, worked hard, and served their town.
Service as a Way of Life
The ice cream tradition was born alongside something else: Memorial Day. In the early years, production coincided with the weekend when Scouting families dedicated hours to placing flags at local cemeteries in honor of veterans. That pairing — honoring the fallen while churning something sweet for the living — was never an accident. It reflected something true about what Troop 81 believes service means.
As the scale of production grew, the two events had to be separated into different weekends. But the spirit never separated. Today, Troop 81 volunteers at more than two dozen community events annually — shoveling, serving, managing parade traffic, and showing up wherever they’re needed. The ice cream fundraiser doesn’t just send Scouts to summer camp. It funds the kind of character development that can’t be purchased or programmed: the understanding that their community is counting on them, and that they are equal to that trust.
The Pillars That Made It Possible
No tradition this enduring survives without institutions willing to stand behind it. The Patterson Lions Club stands with Troop 81— as the troop’s charter organization and its single largest donor for the ice cream fundraiser. Their commitment is not transactional. It is foundational.
The Federated Church deserves equal recognition. From storing the earliest batches of ice cream in its freezers to opening its doors every single week for troop meetings, the church has offered something money can’t buy: a home. The room the Scouts call “the Dungeon” is where boys learn, plan, argue, laugh, and grow — thanks to a congregation that understood that hospitality is its own form of service.
A Legacy That Belongs to Everyone
People travel from miles around for a scoop of Troop 81’s apricot ice cream. Some come for the flavor. Many come for the memory — because they remember being a Scout who worked this booth, a parent who watched their kid serve their first sundae, a neighbor who has never tasted anything quite like it.
But the deepest reason people keep coming back is something harder to name. When you buy a scoop from Troop 81, you are not buying a product. You are participating in a relationship — between this troop and this town, between one generation of young people and the next, between the families who first gathered in a dining room with a pile of apricots and a big idea, and the Scouts who will be picking fruit long after those families are gone.
What began in Burt Smith’s dining room — an evening of experimentation, laughter, and community — has become one of the most enduring expressions of what Patterson, California believes about itself: that community is not a backdrop. It is the whole point. That young people are not passengers in this story. They are the authors of it. And that the best things — the things worth preserving, worth scaling, worth driving across the county for — are made from the freshest ingredients, by hand, by people who love where they live.
As each new generation of Scouts takes up the scoop, they carry forward a legacy that’s as rich and rewarding as the apricots in every batch.
— Kat Ritchie, Patterson Irrigator
BSA Troop 81 • Patterson, California • Charter Organization: Patterson Lions Club
Sources: Kat Ritchie, Patterson Irrigator; Burt Smith
