Boy Scouts throughout Southern Oregon and Northern California hope a highway thief earns points toward his remorse merit badge by returning an 8-foot plywood cutout of a Cub Scout stolen near Lake of the Woods.

On the weekend of Jan. 13, someone made off with the cutout that guides hundreds of area Scouts to the Snowcapades event held during five winter Saturdays at the lake, off Highway 140 near the Jackson/Klamath county line.

The missing cutout was painted in a blue snow suit with a blue-and-gold scarf. It was last seen near mile marker 32, holding a snowball in its right hand.

Normally, scouting officials place the cutout on Highway 140 in the morning, then retrieve it in the afternoon, says Rob Merriman, executive of the Scouts' Big Pines District in Jackson County.

"This time, they forgot," Merriman says. "By the time they got out there the next night, someone had liberated it."

The last time the cutout was stolen five years ago, a newspaper account helped to convince the Cub-kidnapper to return the cutout to Scouts in Klamath Falls.

Same deal this time: Just drop the smiling Cub Scout off, no questions asked, at the Service Center at 3039 Hanley Road, Central Point, or at their Klamath Falls field office on Manzanita Street, Merriman says.

"It won't have enough value to hold onto it," Merriman says. "So, hopefully, they'll return it."