In 1940, Richard "Dick" Preece first recited the Boy Scout oath as an 8-year-old Cub Scout in his native Pocatello, Idaho.

Seventy-eight years later, the Vista resident is still living by that code of loyalty to God, country and the Scout Law.

At a celebration in Vista, the 86-year-old Preece was honored by the national Boy Scouts of America with the rare 75-Year Scout Veteran Award, recognizing three-quarters of a century of continuous service.

Preece, a retired Navy commander and dentist, said he was humbled to receive the honor, which was pinned to his uniform in front of a crowd of nearly 100 people at the Vista Stake Center for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Scouting, Preece said, was a way he could honor both his faith and country while helping to shape young minds in a positive way.

"If a scout follows the program, it teaches them responsibility, organization, leadership and a love for the outdoors," he said. "It's something I've believed in all of my life."

The Boy Scouts national organization doesn't keep a record of how many people have received the 75-year Veteran award, but it's a very small number. Local scout leaders said they believe Preece is only the second recipient in the San Diego-Imperial district, which has 8,000 adult volunteers and serves 15,000 youth. To earn the pin, the recipient requires records of continuous active involvement.

Most adult volunteers start out in the scouts as boys, then return as parents to lead their sons' troops. But Preece never stopped. He moved directly from serving as a scout to leading troops, committees, councils and commissions. He ran jamboree gatherings, camps, hiking and canoe trips, and interviewed and coached Eagle Scout applicants. Even today, he's serving on two regional Scout councils.

Bryce Hall, who serves as commissioner for the Scouts' Buena Vista district, said Preece has been a mentor for him and many other adult volunteers over the years.

"We look at him as the ideal scout," Hall said. "He has a wonderful personality. He's always positive and optimistic and has a great deal of wisdom to share."

Much of the work Preece has done with the Scouts over the years has been through the Mormon church, which partnered with the organization in 1913 to organize church-based troops. Nearly 20 percent of all Boy Scouts are Mormons.

"My calling was in working with youth and training adults to work with youth," he said. "It allowed me to serve my church and spend more time outdoors with my family."

Preece was too busy working multiple jobs as a teenager to earn his Eagle Scout badge, but his devotion to scouting and his passion for hiking and camping rubbed off on his family.

All three of his sons - Mark, 61, of Rhode Island, Rick, 58, of Grass Valley, Calif., and Grant, 53, of Vista, Calif., - are Eagle Scouts. So are eight of his grandsons and a great-grandson will soon achieve the rank.

All of Preece's family has also absorbed his passion for the outdoors, including Nedra, his wife of 63 years; daughter Cindy, 59, of Utah; and daughter Becky, 57, who is on a hike this week to the base camp of Mount Everest in Nepal.

Preece's 31-year-old granddaughter Sarah Preece of Rhode Island said he inspired her career as an outdoor recreation manager and Alaskan wilderness guide. She has fond memories of family camping trips, where her granddad carried his own pack until age 80, relished telling spooky campfire stories and loved reading books in the mountain air.

Local scouting officials and family members describe Preece as the poster boy for representing the Scout Law traits, which include being kind, cheerful, brave and reverent.

"He was the quintessential Norman Rockwell scoutmaster. He was tall, thin, good-looking and strong," said Trevor Bender, who as a boy in 1980 was in Preece's Vista Troop No. 710. Today Bender is assistant council commissioner for the SD-Imperial Council. "He made scouting fun ... and as a volunteer he was always an inspiration to me."

Preece's career as a volunteer scout administrator began in 1950, when he served as an assistant scoutmaster at the National Jamboree in Valley Forge, Penn. His first position as a Boy Scouts-LDS church liaison was at Southern Idaho College of Education, where he met his future wife, Nedra Evans.

During the Korean War, the Mormon church suspended its mission program, but Preece did a one-year volunteer mission in Canada in 1953, which would be the only break in his long scouting career.

After marrying and attending dental school, Preece joined the Navy. His ship postings took his family to the Bay area, South Carolina, Maryland, Great Lakes, Ill., and San Diego. The Preeces moved to Vista 40 years ago, where he retired from the Navy in 1983 and ran a prosthetic dental practice for 10 years. Since then, he's devoted most of his time to scouting and church service.

Preece, who still works out five days a week at the gym, said his favorite part of scouting was always the outdoor part of the program. To plan his scout hikes and campouts, he often did multiple test trips with his three sons, which they each remembered fondly on Thursday.

Nedra said that when her husband was growing up, his father worked nights and wasn't around very much. When he became a father, he was determined to do as much as he could with the kids while they were young.

Youngest son Grant said the trips meant a lot because their father was away so much in the military. "Scouting was one way we could really bond as a family and communicate with him very well."

Much has changed in scouting and America over the past 75 years. Preece said it's a challenge these days to recruit boys who are over-scheduled with school and extracurricular activities and are preoccupied with electronic devices.

There are also big changes in store at the national level. At the end of 2019, the Mormon church will officially split from the Boy Scouts so that it can start its own global youth leadership organization. The church has also opposed some of the Scouts recent progressive policy changes in recent years.

After 2019, Preece said he will no longer work with the Scouts as an official church liaison, but he still plans to volunteer because the principals of the Boy Scout Oath are so important to pass on to future generations.

"People who are bound by the oath are trustworthy, loyal, kind and courteous," he said. "They're respectful of their fellow man and their country rather than drowning it out in the way some people are doing today."

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