You’re never too old to be a Girl Scout, according to Caroline Finneran.

Finneran, of Crescent, about 45 miles south of Bend, has been a registered Girl Scout for more than 50 years and is a lifetime member of the organization.

Not only is she still registered, Finneran still participates in Girl Scouts hands-on.

Finneran was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1954, and first became a Girl Scout around second grade. When her family moved to Santa Barbara, California, Finneran’s mother and another mother started their own troop for their daughters.

Starting a troop

In eighth grade, her family relocated to Rock Port, Missouri, where Finneran’s mother started another troop.

Finneran’s mother led her troop until she died of cancer when Finneran was 16. At that age, if you’re still in Girl Scouts, you’re given opportunities to travel, Finneran said.

“It was the summer after her passing that I had the first opportunity to travel big time internationally with Girl Scouts,” Finneran said. “She was supposed to have gone on the trip with us.”

Finneran went on the trip without her mother to Our Cabaña, a world center for Girl Scouts in Cuernavaca, Mexico. There, she made a scrapbook page with her troop to log their trip.

Her remaining family moved to Boulder, Colorado in 1971 near her father’s extended family for extra support while raising Finneran and her younger brother.

Even through the hardship of losing a mother, Finneran stayed in Girl Scouts and continued to grow up thinking she could do anything.

And that’s exactly what she did.

U.S. Forest Service

When she was in high school, a forest ranger came to speak about his career at a Girl Scout event. Finneran was already enamored by the forests and outdoor activities from scouting, and his speech was her final inspiration.

It led to Finneran studying forestry and outdoor recreation at Colorado State University for the next five years.

“Being outdoors and having those connections with the natural world, understanding how all that works, was something I just grew up interested in,” Finneran said.

Even in college, Finneran was still a Girl Scout. She and a couple of other Girl Scouts started their own campus troop. They’d do outdoor activities like camping or backpacking and help mentor younger, local troops.

“In Girl Scouting you do lots of service projects. They aren’t always big service projects. Sometimes they’re just little things, but we’re constantly doing things to give back to our community and trying to make our world a better place,” Finneran said. “It just kind of becomes something that you don’t even think about. You just do it.”

Finneran worked with the U. S. Forest Service seasonally in Colorado and went on to hold positions in Lakeview and Crescent from 1980 to 1988.

“It was just when women were getting involved in the forestry program,” Finneran said. “I wasn’t really conscientious of the fact that I was breaking new ground. I just got in, learned the job and did the job that I was hired to do.”

Girl Scouts gave her the confidence and leadership skills to step into the position, Finneran said.

Becoming a teacher

After her son and daughter were born, Finneran earned a master’s degree in education and brought her knowledge of Girl Scouts to the classroom in Crescent, a logging town with a population of 278 as of 2022, according to the Census Reporter.

She taught elementary school for 17 years.

”My favorite part of teaching all of them was all the outdoor things that we could do,” Finneran said. “I was incorporating all of these basic life skills that you learn in Girl Scouting and trying to share that at a school level with the kids.”

Sally Lindstrom, Finneran’s daughter, likes to say she was “born a Girl Scout.” In fact, Lindstrom was born on Feb. 22, World Thinking Day, a day established to celebrate scouts around the world. When Lindstrom was just an infant, Finneran was a troop leader and brought her along to meetings.

“The girls grow up realizing that their world isn’t just a little local, isolated world, but they start realizing that they’re part of a global organization,” Finneran said. “As the girls get older, they get to travel internationally, nationally.”

Always a Girl Scout

Finneran and Lindstrom traveled to multiple World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts centers during their time together, including centers in Mexico and Switzerland.

Girl Scouts has also taken Finneran to Norway, Italy, Greece, Spain and many other European countries.

Finneran traveled with her daughter to Mexico, where she was supposed to go with her own mother at age 16. They found the scrapbook page Finneran made when she was young.

”When I was down there, I was able to ask for the scrapbook page,” Finneran said. “I was able to share that with my daughter. It was an incredibly amazing experience.”

Finneran was a council trainer for 25 years, teaching troop leaders how to safely help their Girl Scouts progress through different activities like camping, backpacking, traveling and more.

Now, she teaches troop leaders about taking Girl Scouts on national and international travel.

”You don’t think about what all Girl Scouts has given to you,” Finneran said. “It just becomes how you behave and how you interact with other people, and how you live your life, and what you can do — not what you can’t do.”

“You don’t think about what all Girl Scouts has given to you. It just becomes how you behave and how you interact with other people, and how you live your life, and what you can do — not what you can’t do.”

— Caroline Finneran