
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.
At the 2017 Fall Fellowship old blue is back at Camp Coker. After the National OA rescinded their outright ban on lodges making Ordeal-Brotherhood-Vigil flaps (now they just strongly discourage it) several lodges in the area are going back and reissuing sets. Catawba Lodge 459 was probably the first in the area to do this …Read More
Ever since the 75th Anniversary of the lodge way back in 2013 Santee has created an activity patch set for all lodge events. Each year in the fall a committee takes design proposals and settles on one to carry the entire lodge year program. These patches are usually ordered all at once from the patch …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
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
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
In Episode 3 of Cloth Talk 2.0 Hank Birdsong and Jason Spangler turn the attention to Santee Lodge 116. For those that collect the lodge one of the more puzzling issues might be the S12 flap. It was first issued in 1995 replacing the S1o which had been the lodge’s single combination honors flap for …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
In August of 2011 at the LLDC the executive committee approved a new “Trader Flap” for the lodge. The vote came at the direction of the scout executive in order to have a Santee flap available for open sale in the Florence office. Several designs were drawn up around tables in the dining hall. However, …Read More