Scouting News

Eagle Scout AY Young, 30, is grabbing the world’s attention — both with his activism (which started with his Eagle project) and with his music. Young dedicated his Eagle project to his activism and currently spends much of his time ensuring that disadvantaged communities have access to electricity. With his music, Young has released two albums full of personal and motivating songs.

“The idea for me in life is to bring everyone together, because deep down I feel that we are all the same and one big family,” he says.  Read More...

A simple question spoke volumes.

“Raise your hand if you know what D-Day is,” the teacher said one day in Christopher Adam’s eighth grade honors history class.

Christopher’s hand went up. He looked around, and only two other hands were raised. Just three members of the class of 25 knew that D-Day — June 6, 1944 — is the day the Allies invaded Western Europe in World War II.

“It was sad to see that students my age didn’t know about the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation,” Christopher says. “With my Eagle project on the horizon, I thought it would be good to memorialize them and be able to educate people my age about what they did for us.” Read More...

Does your sleeping bag smell like a dirty sock? Get rid of the stink and dirt with a good washing.

However, frequent (and unnecessary) washings — whether by hand or in a washing machine — could cause your sleeping bag to lose loft and warmth. The baffles take a beating, too.

Get the most out of your sleeping bag by carefully caring for, cleaning and storing it. Here’s how. Read More...

Scouts today know there are plenty of ways to enjoy the outdoors without kindling a campfire.

Modern sleeping bags and layered clothing can eliminate the need of fire for warmth. Lightweight stoves bring instant heat for cooking meals. And one can discover appreciation for nature at night without a dominating firelight.

Still, there’s nothing quite like a campfire. Knowing when, where and how to build one is an essential Scouting skill and a useful skill for life.  Read More...

Even the best-designed recruiting flyer is just part of the equation.

These days, recruiting more families to your pack, troop or crew means getting out there into your community. It means sharing the story of Scouting directly. It means word of mouth.

That strategy — and three other simple but ingenious ideas — has helped a new Scouts BSA troop for girls nearly triple in size in its first six months of existence. Troop 283 of Wayzata, Minn., formed in February with eight girls. It now has 23. Read More...

o what if dogs can’t say the Scout slogan? That hasn’t stopped Ranger from doing his Good Turn daily.

For the past few years, Ranger has been helping his best friend, Ethan Warren, cope with the sometimes-violent “triggers” Ethan experiences as part of his Asperger’s syndrome.

The pup’s presence has been especially helpful at Ethan’s boards of review in Scouts BSA Troop 426 of Manchester, Mich., part of the Southern Shores Field Service Council. Read More...

Life in the Flaming Scorpion Patrol is good. All seven members came up through Cub Scouting as a den, they enjoy hanging out together and they work well as a team. On campouts, patrol leader Maya rarely has to give orders or even worry about who’s on the duty roster for cleanup.

But then the Chocolate Donut Patrol falls apart, and the patrol leaders’ council assigns Olivia and Sofia to the Flaming Scorpions.

Olivia’s cool, but Sofia’s a different story. Read More...

District chairman and former Scoutmaster Mike DiTrani has completed five Philmont treks and frequently hikes in the Adirondacks, but some of his favorite hiking happens much closer to his Staten Island home.

“Urban hiking turns sidewalks into trails,” he says.

Manhattan Scoutmaster Bob Bradley enjoys taking his Scouts hiking in Central Park — just two blocks from their meeting place — and on sidewalks and shared-use paths all over New York City.

“There are so many different opportunities,” he says. “And if you spin around a little bit, you can gain a new perspective — all for free.” Read More

 One of the many things I appreciate about the Scout Motto is the way it demands self-reliance. To “Be Prepared,” one must take personal responsibility. Self-reliance is one of the main values we work to instill in Scouts, and our program is uniquely positioned to help young people practice it in their daily lives. Something that brings me great joy is the way our movement includes young people who have special needs or disabilities. In our organization, every Scout is a Scout first, and a Scout with unique needs second. Read More...

When Lt. Col. Sarah Deal was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan in 2009, she and her husband, airline pilot Phil Burrow, needed someone to help take care of their boys, 7-year-old twins Troy and Brandon, and Eric, who was 2. Their friends, the Barfuss family, volunteered, instantly growing in size from six kids to nine. Deal’s boys tagged along with the Barfuss kids when they started in Pack 611 in St. Joseph, Mich., the next fall.

Deal got involved in Scouting with her sons’ pack after her 13-month deployment. She eventually moved the boys to Troop 623 and became the troop’s high-adventure coordinator. Read More....

It’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and Samuel Wynn is spending the morning riding in a truck around a St. Louis neighborhood picking up bags of donated food.

Some are so heavy that they take two boys to lift.

Dutch-Oven Turkey

2 tablespoons canola oil

Three large onions: two sliced into half-inch-thick rings and one quartered

Six large sprigs of fresh rosemary (can substitute 6 tablespoons dried rosemary)

Six sprigs of sage

Six sprigs of thyme

One 12-pound whole turkey, thawed, with giblets removed (size of turkey depends on size of oven)

Dutch-Oven Stuffing

Serves about 12

2 tablespoons canola oil

One large onion, chopped

2 cups celery, chopped

One bell pepper, chopped

One loaf day-old bread, cubed and placed into large mixing bowl

1 cup pecans, chopped

The first time Mike Ross visited Troop 2012, a new troop predominately composed of Hispanic Scouts in Oak Cliff, an economically diverse Dallas neighborhood, he asked: “Where’s the Scoutmaster?”

“You’re it,” the district executive told him. Thinking quickly, Ross pulled the shoestrings out of his shoes and started teaching knot-tying to the three Scouts in attendance.

Taylor Thomas was never a Cub Scout, but he made up for lost time after 81-year-old Scoutmaster Gib Kohr came to his school to recruit for Troop 45. (“It was almost a dare from an 81-year-old: ‘I can do this better than you,’ ” Thomas recalls.)

Thomas became an Eagle Scout in Troop 45. He then found a second home in the Order of the Arrow’s Skyuka Lodge, where he served two terms as lodge chief. 

After a good experience in Cub Scouting, where he earned the Arrow of Light Award and the Parvuli Dei religious award, Windsor, Colo., native David Aragon’s tenure in Boy Scouting was cut short by bullying. In fact, he dropped out after earning only the Tenderfoot rank and the Engineering merit badge.

Despite that mixed experience, he knew the difference Scouting could make, having watched close friends become Eagle Scouts. So when his first son was old enough to become a Tiger, the family signed up.