Any Eagle Scouts out there?

[Ramjo]

A few of us are wondering how many on here attained the Eagle Scout award? Just curious. We could start our own group!

[RobertNashville]

Well for some reason that I haven't figured out yet, the BSA considers me to be an Eagle Scout but I never went higher than "Life".

[MacGyver]

I'm an Eagle Scout.

[quietguy]

Boy, I haven't thought about this in years. I completed all of the requirements, but was never awarded. I need to check on that. I was OA as well.

[waterchicken]

I was just two half merit badges away and a Eagle project. I still beat myself up for not finishing what I started. (I started as a cub scout)

[Loon160T]

Bicentennial Eagle here.

[Jonnin]

I got really close, I forget if I finished the requirements but if not it was not by much, when I became really fed up with the other kids. A series of incidents involving some kids who never should have been in scouts left me cold to it and I quit over it. And the worst 3 of them were the sons of the scoutmaster, of course.

[dats82]

I'm an Eagle scout. When I started scouts, my mother said I could not quit until I either turned 18 (at which point, they kick you out) or until I reached Eagle. Turns out, it was not as bad as I thought it was, and I was not in any really hurry to get out. I subsequently nearly took too long, but I did get it done. I was awarded my rank and turned 18 within a month of each other. It was a great experience for me, and I will most certainly encourage my son to participate should I ever have a son.

[Parrothead]

Poor leadership ended my Scout career. I was a Life at the time. When they awared two guys with Eagle after being caught smoking weed by leadership i decided that the award wasn't worth that much to me. But.......congrats to you for acheiving the goal! Its a honor and it set you up for success in the future.

[MacGyver]

I am proud to be an Eagle Scout, but I cherish the skills I learned in scouting. They've saved my life or the life of someone with me more than once.

[wewoapsiak]

My troop was lucky enough to stay together when the numbers dwindled down to a handful. Thankfully we had a few good leaders to make it happen. Eagle Scout, 2001.

[Volzfan]

Yep count me in! Troop 4. Made Eagle Scout in the early 70's.

[tennhome]

^{Life scout, but all three sons are Eagle Scouts. I'm very proud of them.}

[daddyo]

I was a scout, but never made Eagle. However, my son received his Eagle Award in 2006. We didn't allow him to quit, even though he wanted to many times.

[Ramjo]

I earned my award in 2006. I was also in the Order of the Arrow, a Brotherhood member. I had enough merit badges afterwards for 2 or 3 palms attached to the Eagle medal, however they got tangled up in paperwork around the time I was booted. I had also served as junior asst. scoutmaster for some time.

We had very good leaders. All of them had a son or two in the troop, or had a son that had been in the troop before. They all worked together well and took us as far east as Nashville one summer to a camp called Mack Morris. Another year we went to Maine for summer camp. Our home camp is located in Whitesburg, TN. called Camp Davy Crockett.

We always participated in ETSU's merit badge university held every January I think.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Ramjo

[10-Ring]

Went in a Tiger cub came out an Eagle Scout, had my Eagle Scout paper work submitted about a week before my 18th birthday. I really took my time on that one, I was one of those 4 year Life Scouts. I loved it almost the whole time, I hated that I had to get out but my troop had dwindled down to nothing and folded shortly after I got my Eagle so there wasn't any leadership opportunities available there.

I see several people here and elsewhere that say they quit scouting because of a conflict with other scouts or leaders. I was a member of 3 different troops throughout my scouting career. I left the first two due to leadership issues, most of which were grown men that wanted to be in charge of something. I might not have liked what was going on then but leaving scouting never crossed my mind, I just knew that I needed a new troop.

I am very thankful for the skills I learned as a scout, not just in the woods but in life in general. I hate how much they are sissifying things these days but kids aren't as tough as they used to be. If it's hard they will not be interested so I guess we have to dumb scouting down a little bit to keep it alive.

I liked scouting alot, so much that when I got out I got the BSA Eagle Scout emblem tattooed onto me. Only tattoo I have ever gotten.

[Capbyrd]

Eagle Scout. Chickasaw Council Class of 99

[gjohnsoniv]

Eagle Scout here as well. Took 11 years or close to it, handed in the paperwork just a week or so shy of turning 18.

[10-Ring]

Eagle Scout here as well. Took 11 years or close to it, handed in the paperwork just a week or so shy of turning 18.

Seems to be very common. I remember one guy I was in with got to the scout office about 2 minutes before they closed on his 18th birthday. I think that "prompt" should be the 13th point of scouting, seems we have an issue with that.

I was looking at the current requirements for the Eagle Scout Award. When I got mine you had to conduct a project consisting of at least 100 man hours. It seems that there is no longer a hour requirement. See the requirements here http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/BoyScouts/AdvancementandAwards/eagle.aspx. When I was in the swimming merit badge was a requirement, I see that they have now included an alternative of hiking or cycling. I remember at least one scout that didn't obtain the rank of Eagle because they couldn't pass the float test for the swimming merit badge. Don't remember the requirements for hiking but the requirements in my day for cycling were pretty tough, I remember a 100 mile ride being in there. I have no qualms letting a guy replace swimming with cycling.

[gjohnsoniv]

I was told that there was an hour requirement for my project. Maybe it just varies troop to troop as to what they leaders want. I guess if national says there isn't a limit though then there isn't one.

[Capbyrd]

Yep they seem to have removed the hour requirement completely. I read the Eagle Workbook just now and it says explicitly that there is no hour requirement and noone can tell you there is.

What did you all do for your project?

For my project, the city of Millington (just outside of Memphis) needed to inform their residents of the importance of smoke detectors. The Millington Fire Department had some that they would install free of charge if a home didn't have one.

My job was organize a group of scouts to visit every address in the Millington city limits. I got Kinkos to donate copies of literature for us. I got every troop in the area to assist on a few Saturdays by going door to door. And the city didn't have enough smoke detectors either so I got Wal Mart, Lowes, Home Depot and Home Quarters (WOW that was a long time ago) to donate some to the cause. I think I ended up getting around 300 donated detectors.

I worked with the Fire Chief to get a listing of every address in the city. Once I had all of the literature, the addresses and the volunteers, I broke the city up into small sections and assigned each troop a section. Over the course of a month, we hit something like 15,000 addresses. My job, after the volunteers had talked to them, was to go to the houses that needed a smoke detector and schedule a time for a fireman to come by and install the detector. When all was said and done, the fire chief believed that there were less than 5 percent of homes left without a working smoke detector.

I absolutely loved my project and was very proud of the entire thing.

[Ramjo]

I did a simple forest service style trail sign for the Tusculum Park Walking Trail. I had to get materials donated from Lowes and I used our tractor to dig the holes for the sign. I had 4 or 5 people help out with the assembly. I had to keep track of the hours.

Another guy in my troop built two identical to mine later on for the other parking lots behind Greene Valley Developmental Center, but I would drive by and see only his dad out there working on it, so I don't feel he earned it.

I'll look and see if I have a picture anywhere to upload.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Ramjo

[gjohnsoniv]

I did trail maintenance at the Ijams' Nature Center in Knoxville. Basically cleared an older trail and re-chipped it along with doing the same to another trail on the property. I also made a sculpture of Mr. Ijams to put at the trail head. Ended up doing most of the work with only about 4 or 5 other guys, and ended up with heat exhaustion that took me out for the better part of a week. That is why you need a lot of water when working in the sun, even if you feel fine (my stupid mistake.)

It's kind of a shame that they have removed the limit. I'm assuming though that it has to be something of note? Not just making some flyers out and saying it's to raise the awareness of something?

Edited April 5, 2012 by gjohnsoniv

[10-Ring]

I built a walkway at my church between the parking lot and a picnic pavilion. The walkway was about 320 feet long and included a small bridge. I used 8 foot landscaping timbers, pegged in at each end with 1/2" foot long pieces of rebar. The walkway was 5 feet wide and filled with mulch. It looked really nice when it was finished and gave everyone a way to reach the pavilion without walking through high grass and a sometimes dry creekbed. I don't remember exactly how many hours I logged but it was well over 100. I had help from my troop members and several family members. Lowes donated the landscape timbers, a local steel business donated the rebar and a local nursery donated the mulch. I remember out of pocket costs being almost nothing. I had a lot of good memories doing that project, I pulled my fair share of the weight but I had lots of people more than willing to help.

[broylz]

i am an Eagle as well. got it finished a few months before i turned 18. my little brother got his done much quicker.

you dont hear much about it anymore. got me an automatic promotion to "skeeter wings" when i enlisted though.