Boy Scouts of America troops with more than 300 Eagles:
Troop 1, Paoli. Pa, turned 100 last year and awarded its 308th Eagle in June.
Troop 232, LaJunta, Colo., boasts more than 600 Eagles, more than any known troop in BSA history.
Troop 205, Kalamazoo, Mich., achieved it 300th Eagle in 1999 and their ranks now number 350.
Troop 236, Kettering, Ohio, celebrated its 301st Eagle Scout Saturday with a gathering of Eagles from the troop's 59-year history.
Troop 236 in Kettering this weekend celebrated an important milestone: becoming the first Boy Scout troop in Ohio to surpass 300 Eagle Scouts.
It is only the fourth known troop in the United States to achieve that distinction since Arthur Eldred of Oceanside, N.Y., became the first Eagle Scout Aug. 1, 1912, after surviving a high-intensity grilling by some of the Boy Scouts of America’s co-founders.
“Three hundred is incredibly rare,” noted Dayton native Bill Steele, director of Alumni Relations and the National Eagle Scout Association for the Boy Scouts of America. “There are troops that are incredibly proud of reaching 100, and they should be.”
Steele noted that the accomplishment is particularly impressive because of the remarkably fast clip of the past 200 Eagles — all earned since 1987 under the leadership of Scoutmaster (and Dayton pediatric surgeon) Charles “Doc” Goodwin, who was awarded Scouting’s prestigious Silver Antelope Award at the BSA’s national annual meeting in May. “You’re seeing the effects of an incredibly good Scoutmaster,” said Steele, who earned his own Eagle award in 1966 with Troop 116 in Centerville.
Goodwin, however, gives the credit to the leadership of the boys themselves and to the troop’s five-day training in leadership and Scout skills. “You can’t be any more boy-led than we are,” Goodwin said.
Eagles from Troop 236’s 59-year history gathered at the Mandalay Banquet Center Saturday night for a reunion and celebration of the milestone. The event was coordinated by Montgomery County Commission candidate Ashley Webb, whose children have all been involved with the troop.
Michael Engel, 18, a 2012 graduate of Oakwood High School, was thrilled to become Eagle number 300. “When I was a young Scout, we always wondered who it would be,” he recalled. “It’s a great honor. We have an amazing Scoutmaster — one of the funniest, quirkiest guys ever, who remembers everyone’s birthdays and makes everyone feel wanted. It trickles down to the troop and everyone gets along really well. The adults stand back and let the boys grow and mature through their own decisions.”
Engel dropped out of Scouting for a year but returned to pursue his Eagle. Goodwin predicted he’ll be glad he did:”It is going to benefit them when they apply to colleges and for jobs. It can make the difference and open the door to them,” he said.
Goodwin’s own son, Charles, is one of those Eagle Scouts who is accomplishing big things. Although still a student at Indiana University, where he is obtaining a medical degree as well as a Ph.D. in genetics, Charles created the first genetically-engineered mouse model to study leukemia, which is now being used in three research labs.
Two brothers from the troop — Joe and Dusty Honious, both Eagles — rescued an extended family of five at Myrtle Beach in August 2000, only a few months after earning their life-saving badge. Joe received the Lifesaving Award with crossed palms and was selected by the National BSA to present the BSA National Report to the Nation.
Another Troop 236 Eagle, Ballard Smith, worked at The Johns Hopkins University’s applied physics lab, where he built some of the electronics for the New Horizons mission to Pluto. While serving in the Peace Corps, Jeremy West, a forester, became Scoutmaster of the first Boy Scout Troop in Etropole, Bulgaria.
The current crop of Eagles is also impressive, Goodwin noted. Engel, for instance, won Sinclair Community College’s Paul Laurence Dunbar poetry contest.
Steele predicts it will be only the beginning of a lifetime of accomplishment. After all, it was his Scoutmaster, the late James Poppleton — “a fantastic man, my second Dad” — who introduced him to his lifelong passion for caving, about which he has written two books.
Goodwin also is a believer in the lifelong impact of the Eagle award: “It gives them advantages but also the responsibility to step up to the plate. It obligates them to be leaders forever.”
