The first Lodge patch was approved in 1955. It was designed by Merle Vogel and Holland St. John, both of Richland. It was dome-shaped and made of green twill with a yellow border and white letters and a ram’s head. The patch was worn on the right pocket where temporary insignia are usually placed. It remained the Lodge emblem for five years.
The first flap was approved in 1960. It was designed by Tom Simonton of Pendleton. It had black twill with a gold border and lettering. The design featured a mountain sheep standing among blue mountains with a red arrow through the center of the patch. By decision of the Executive Committee, these Lodge patches could not be traded.
Recognizing the need for a trading patch in the early 1970’s, and to fill the need of Arrowmen attending a National Jamboree and owning several uniforms, a multi-colored patch with a new design was approved. Several sketches were submitted, and the concept developed by Ron Olson of Richland was accepted and submitted to the National Supply Service artists for refinement. It was to be fully embroidered and featured an Indian camp scene at the base of mountains. Three canoes were beached on the shore of a lake. The scene represented the Wallowa Mountains with Lake Wallowa in the foreground. The three canoes represented Ordeal, Brotherhood, and Vigil Honors of the Order of the Arrow, and this design came to be known as “Three Canoes”.
Around 1977, William Berry of Walla Walla designed a new Lodge flap. It was multi-colored with a gold border. It featured red letters for the Lodge’s name. The central feature was a large mountain sheep’s head facing slightly to the left.
Three variations of this patch were approved a short time later: Ordeal members were to receive the patch with a gold border, Brotherhood members to receive one with a black border, and Vigil Honor members to receive one with a red border. The order was placed, and the National Supply Service accidentally produced the wrong patches. The patches sent with the three different borders were the “Three Canoes” design, not the Berry Patch. This is why we have the red and black bordered “Three Canoes” patches, and why we have both a cloth- and plastic-backed version of the gold-bordered “Three Canoes”.
These patches were sold to the members as traders except that the 25 red-bordered patches were only sold to Vigil members of the Lodge. An order for the Berry flaps was placed with National Supply Service once again, except that the Lodge Staff Adviser made the unpopular decision that the different borders were not to be ordered. The Berry patches were used from 1978 to 1983.