May - June 2003

• Evolution of the Eagle Scout Award

How to get the 2003 Csatari painting

Is there a way to purchase a copy of the 2003 BSA illustration "Prepared to Do a Good Turn" by Joseph Csatari, as shown in the January-February issue?

John Wink
Washington Township, Mich.

Even more fires in the West

Thanks for the article in the January-February issue on last summer's fires threatening camps in the West. However, you didn't mention three camps in California that experienced fire threats that, in at least one case, required evacuations.

Specifically, our Camp Whitsett provided services for more than 400 people in an evacuation camp. (Information and photos are available at www.whitsett.org.)

In addition, Desert Pacific Council's Mataguay Scout Reservation and Orange County Council's Lost Valley Scout Reservation were threatened by fires during the camp season.

Chuck Smith
Program Director, Camp Whitsett
Western Los Angeles County Council

Thank you, Billy Jim

I opened Scouting magazine and to my surprise saw the face of my Scoutmaster, Billy Jim Vaughn ("Timeless Teacher," January-February 2003).

I am one of thousands of boys to pass through Troop 1 of Brentwood, Tenn., and not a day goes by that I don't thank God for putting men like Billy Jim in my life...I am one of the 42 assistant leaders mentioned in the article, and I make every Troop 1 event that I can attend. (I proudly tell people I am an Eagle Scout and an active member of Troop 1.)

I have a four-year degree from college, [but] I am returning to school to get an education degree to become a teacher. Needless to say, that decision is a direct result of my relationship with Troop 1 and Billy Jim.

Thank you for honoring a man that I, and many others, revere and cherish.

Randy Williams
Dallas, Ga.

BSA Fitness Award is great idea

As a community pediatrician, Scouter, and mother of an Eagle Scout, I highly commend the BSA for establishing the new Physical Fitness Award as described in the November-December 2002 issue.

We are developing a crisis of childhood obesity in this country, and I appreciate anything the Boy Scouts can do to promote physical activity.

In Scouting, many leaders also are overweight, so I am glad that the BSA award challenges adults as well as boys to get in shape. Keep up the good work in promoting healthful activity.

Elizabeth Stone, M.D.
Committee Member, Troop 4
Ann Arbor, Mich.

For requirements for the fitness award, Scouters and parents can ask at their local council service center for the brochure "To Be Physically Fit BSA" (No. 19-327). The requirements, award application, and fitness guidelines can also be found on the BSA Web site, www.scouting.org.

Shawn Bowman Memorial Fund

I just opened your January-February issue to the moving article about Shawn Bowman, the Eagle Scout and leader killed on 9-11. Are donations still being accepted for his memorial amphitheater, and if so, how would we send something? (I will share this article with my five Eagle Scout sons, who are now all in their 20's.)

Peggy Smith
Ontario, Calif.

Donations can be sent to the Shawn Bowman Memorial Fund, Greater New York Council, Boy Scouts of America, 350 Fifth Ave., Suite 530, New York, NY 10118-0199.

The impact of Scouting on homeschooled children

I was gratified to see the November-December 2002 article on Scouting and homeschooling, "Learning—and Scouting—at Home." We homeschooled our sons in an organization that used a full scholastic program but also had a Scouting program for the all-important socialization and to round out the children's education.

We later moved to an area that had no other homeschooled Scouts. The boys joined a Cub Scout pack and later moved into a troop, and their father became a Scouter.

Scouting has enriched our family in ways we never expected. My sons and I went through a great deal of training, learning, and fun with the finest people in the world, Scouts and Scouters.

A few years ago we enrolled our sons in high school, but we still consider Scouting a major part of their education. Both boys completed junior leader training; one became a JLT instructor, and the other taught at summer camp.

And both became Eagle Scouts and Vigil Honor members of the Order of the Arrow.

I strongly encourage anyone to put their sons into Scouting programs. As homeschoolers in particular, we found it to be a real boon, a Godsend.

Tonette Skube
Bardstown, Ky.

Evolution of the Eagle Scout Award When Scouts could 'jump' to Eagle In "Evolution of the Eagle Scout Award" (The Way It Was, November-December 2002), Robert Peterson stated that in the BSA's early years a First Class Scout on the trail to Eagle would first earn the five required merit badges for Life Scout (First Aid, Athletics, Lifesaving, Personal Health, Public Health), then five more badges for Star Scout, then 11 more (a total of 21, including the five required for Life Scout) for the Eagle Scout Award. However, from 1910 to 1914, no specific merit badges were required for Eagle Scout, nor was being a Life Scout or Star Scout a requirement. A First Class Scout could go directly to Eagle Scout by earning any 21 merit badges (none of which had to be among the five required for Life Scout). In fact, of the first nine Eagle Scouts, eight—including the first, Arthur Eldred, in 1912—did not earn either Life or Star Scout recognition. In 1914 the Committee on Badges, Awards, and Scout Requirements made certain merit badges compulsory for Eagle. When the number of Eagle Scouts declined in 1915, the committee said the drop "...is accounted for by the fact that the standard for the Eagle Badge was raised by making compulsory the securing of the badges in Athletics or Physical Development, Camping, Cooking, First Aid, Life Saving, Pioneering, Pathfinding, Personal Health, Public Health, Bird Study, and Civics, in addition to 10 others which may be chosen from the various subjects." Terry Grove Author, A Comprehensive Guide to the Eagle Scout Award Winter Park, Fla. Wrong Eagle Scout shown I would like to point out that the likeness of the BSA's first Eagle Scout shown in the illustration with the November-December 2002 The Was It Was column, "Evolution of the Eagle Scout Award," is not that of my father, Arthur Eldred. This error has been a persistent problem since it appeared in the 1985 edition of the book The Boy Scouts: An American Adventure. The image of the Scout who has been incorrectly identified as my father is, in fact, that of Theodore Gatz Jr., whose advancement to Eagle was announced in the August 1913 issue of Boys' Life. Willard G. Eldred Princeton, N.J.

Copyright © 2003 by the Boy Scouts of America. All rights thereunder reserved; anything appearing in Scouting magazine or on its Web site may not be reprinted either wholly or in part without written permission. Because of freedom given authors, opinions may not reflect official concurrence.

The Boy Scouts of America

http://www.scouting.org