By John Mahoney

Right before we started 6th Grade, my parents told my brother Ryan and me that we would be joining the Boy Scouts. Not thinking much of it, I agreed. Then, little 6th Grade me had no idea how much of an impact my time as a Boy Scout would have.

A Scouting ceremony. Photo credit: Katy Haskell.

In fall 2019, I joined Troop 444 in Richmond. I remember how nervous I was being surrounded by a bunch of adult leaders and older kids. At the time, the Troop mostly consisted of St. Christopher’s and Collegiate boys, but as I got older, people from all around the Richmond area joined our troop, and it became more diverse.

The Boy Scouts of America was founded in 1910 by William D. Boyce, who was inspired by the British Boy Scouts Association, founded in 1907 by Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell. Now called Scouting America, the organization says that it “aims to prepare young people for lives of impact and purpose.”

In Scouting, there are seven ranks: Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle. The first step of a boy’s journey to Eagle Scout is earning the rank of Scout. Rising through the ranks can be a long and tedious process, and not everyone gets all the way to the rank of Eagle. According to the Great Rivers Council Boy Scout page, around 6% of all scouts eventually earn the rank of Eagle Scout.

Earning the rank of Scout includes going on an overnight camping trip with the troop, learning basic knife safety, and memorizing the Scout Oath and Scout Law. After you complete these prerequisites, you can participate in a Scout Master Conference. Every troop approaches these conferences a little bit differently, but in Troop 444, the only time we could complete a Scoutmaster conference was on an overnight hike. After completing your Scout Master Conference, you have your board of review, where your scoutmaster tests your knowledge on basic knife safety and the Scout Oath and Law. If you pass that, you are officially a Scout.

With each rank, the number of requirements increases, as does the difficulty. This typically stops at the rank of First Class, where there are three pages of requirements in total.

My Eagle Scout Court of Honor. Photo credit: Katy Haskell.

Most requirements come from both the Second and First Class ranks, and with each rank comes a three-page list of requirements that need to be checked off. When working on these ranks, staying locked in and getting requirements done is key. I remember when I first started working on my Second Class requirements at the age of 14 and how daunting it looked. But most of these are easily obtainable by showing an adult or older scout that you have the ability to tie a certain knot, or explaining to them how to create a basic splint for a broken bone.

Work on my Eagle Scout project. Photo credit: Peter Mahoney.

When you finally start working on the requirements for Star, the demands change. Instead of doing something simple, like explaining how to use a compass correctly, you have to complete requirements that demonstrate your understanding of the core values of what it means to be a Boy Scout. An example of this is Requirement Two, which states: “As a First Class Scout, demonstrate Scout spirit by living the Scout Oath and Scout Law. Tell how you have done your duty to God and how you have lived the Scout Oath and Scout Law in your everyday life.” 

A major aspect of the Star rank is that you are required to earn merit badges to keep progressing. To move on to Eagle Scout, a scout must earn 21 total merit badges, with seven of them being designated “Eagle required.” To earn a merit badge, you must typically sign up for a class that spans over a period of a couple of days. During a merit badge class, you learn skills or facts related to that merit badge. In the First Aid merit badge class, we learned about basic first aid, such as how to correctly perform CPR and how to apply a tourniquet. 

One thing that people might not realize about these badges is how much paperwork they require. For some merit badge classes, you are also required to do prerequisite work, which just adds even more paperwork. 

Once you are a Life Scout, you have to complete your Eagle Scout project. This project alone takes hours of work to complete. The whole process, from the paperwork to the planning and the actual project, can take months to complete.

Community service is a staple of what it means to be a Scout, and it plays an enormous role in your development toward Eagle. For every rank, you need service hours. These service-hour requirements are easy to complete, ranging from 4 to 6 hours per rank.

When you start working on your Eagle Scout Project, every hour that you spend filling out forms is spent planning your project. For my Eagle Scout project, some of my friends and I went to Agecroft Hall and fixed some of the trails behind the mansion. We repaired damage a fallen tree had caused to part of the trail, and we installed 10 stone steps that lead the trail down a hill. Overall, the project took around six hours of work. The hard work paid off, though. After we were done, the trail looked much better than before.

Featured image credit courtesy of Scouting America.