
Santee Lodge 116 was chartered in 1938 to the Pee Dee Area Council headquartered in Florence, South Carolina. It serves eleven counties in the northeastern corner of the state stretching from rural farmland to the popular beaches along the grand strand. The heart of Santee Lodge is the council's summer camp property Camp Coker just outside of Society Hill, SC in Chesterfield County. The camp was founded in 1928 and during the life of the lodge much of its service has been centered around promoting, maintaining, and improving this jewel of the sandhills. The totem of the lodge is the Carolina Parakeet which is an extinct bird that was the only native species of parakeets in North America. Since 1955 the lodge has featured the bird on all of its memorabilia and lodge members proudly celebrate that heritage. Over its many years of service Santee Lodge has won many awards including the E. Urner Goodman Camping Award and numerous Dixie Fellowship recognitions. Although a small lodge compared to many of its neighbors Santee has stood out for the quality of its people and their passion for Scouting. In fact Rusty Riddle in his book on the history of the Dixie name Santee 116 as the #1 lodge in the section over the first fifty years of the conclave.
Santee Lodge has approved a couple OA Centennial issues which will be available in 2015. All of these designs were drawn by Vigil Honor brother Todd Knaperek of Tsali Lodge. As noted in an earlier post the lodge is doing a 5-patch set for the lodge events in 2015. At the 2014 Fall Fellowship this …Read More
To celebrate the lodge’s 75th anniversary Santee 116 issued a unique activity patch set that is tied together with a star shaped jacket patch. This center patch featured the diamond anniversary logo and the names of the 5 OA chapters in the lodge. The initials CC represent the home camp – Camp Coker. The events …Read More
For going on a decade now the lodge has issued an activity patch set. In 2022 the designer, William Duffell, went with a “teardrop” design which throws back to patches that have been issued as far back as the 1974 Fall Fellowship. There are 5 patches in the set. This is one less than all …Read More
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Order of the Arrow Santee 116 is issuing an activity patch set. Although the first event in the set happened in January the patches were not ready. However, they were sold at the recent Spring Fellowship and the lodge store adviser was kind enough to bring out the …Read More
Santee Lodge 116 returned to Myrtle Beach, SC for it’s annual Winter Banquet for the first time since 1996. The lodge banquet was held at the Sea Mist Resort on January 4th. The day was more than a banquet however with an LEC meeting and the first full Dixie staff meeting. For patch collectors this …Read More
I really can’t tell you where I got hooked on lodge T-shirts. My brother will tell you that when he shipped out for the army after graduating high school that I raided his drawers looking for cool clothes. Among the shirts in there was the 1983 Dixie staff t-shirt from Santee 116. It is not …Read More
One of the goals of CarolinaOA.com is to share the stories that are so obscure that people in that lodge or council might not even know. I’ve got one of those for you today but first you have to go back about 15 years to the reign of terror. During the late 1990s the Pee …Read More
The Blue Book listing for Santee Lodge 116 has a curious listing that I’m sure most folks have never heard the story on. It is listed as ZS1 and the description reads, “Known examples burned in fireplace”. Well it just so happens that I stumbled across the only pictures ever taken of this patch and …Read More