40 Fun Facts About Eagle Scouts

Which US president, raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the only one to have earned Eagle Scout?

Gerald Ford earned the rank in 1927, and when he died about 400 Eagle Scouts lined up as his casket passed in the funeral procession.

Which Eagle Scout sent his regards to a Scout jamboree in Idaho while flying to the Moon in 1969?

Neil Armstrong sent the message days before stepping onto the lunar surface, and for many years afterwards he wrote letters congratulating new Eagle Scouts.

Which Eagle Scout director made a nine-minute Western to earn his Photography merit badge?

Steven Spielberg shot The Last Gunfight on 8 mm film, and decades later he helped the Boy Scouts of America develop a merit badge in cinematography.

Which merit badge minimum, set for Eagle Scout in the 1911 handbook, is still the requirement?

21 has been the total for all but six years: a 1972 overhaul of the program raised it to 24, and the original figure returned in 1978.

Which Eagle Palm color ranks highest, standing for fifteen merit badges beyond the Eagle requirement?

Silver outranks gold here because the Palms follow the heraldic order of the US military: bronze marks five extra badges and gold marks ten.

Before which birthday must a Scout complete the Eagle requirements, apart from the final board of review?

The 18th birthday is the cut-off for everything but the board of review, which may be held up to three months later.

In which rank must a Scout serve actively for at least six months before earning Eagle?

Life is the last stop before Eagle, though it once sat lower: until 1924 it came before Star in the order of ranks.

Which animal named the top award in the June 1911 Handbook for Boys, before the eagle replaced it?

Wolf Scout was the name in print for only two months: the August 1911 edition of the handbook renamed the highest award Eagle Scout.

Until a 1952 rule set an age limit, which group could earn Eagle Scout alongside teenagers?

Adults could qualify for the first four decades, which is how the fourth Eagle Scout came to be a 31-year-old Scoutmaster from New York.

Which Long Island teenager received the very first Eagle Scout medal on Labor Day 1912?

Arthur Eldred had passed his review months earlier but had to wait for the medal's design to be settled; his son and grandson went on to earn the rank too.

Which British visitor, newly arrived in New York, sat on the first Eagle Scout's board of review in 1912?

Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout movement, had landed that same morning, and it is uncertain how he found out the review was taking place that afternoon.

Which of these is off-limits as the beneficiary of an Eagle Scout service project?

Their own troop is ruled out because a project may not benefit Scouting itself; it has to serve a school, a religious institution or the wider community.

Which Apollo 13 commander earned the Eagle Scout rank as a boy growing up in Milwaukee?

Jim Lovell went on to chair the National Eagle Scout Association, years after he brought his crippled spacecraft safely back to Earth.

Which Eagle Scout director stood outside the White House at John F. Kennedy's inauguration on his own 15th birthday?

David Lynch was there with other Boy Scouts, and in later years he often chose to describe himself simply as an Eagle Scout from Missoula, Montana.

Which Eagle Scout, who earned the rank at twelve, later served three terms as mayor of New York City?

Michael Bloomberg made Eagle while growing up in Medford, Massachusetts, long before he founded the financial data company that carries his name.

Which Eagle Scout, who read to blind students for his service project, went on to host Dirty Jobs?

Mike Rowe cites those reading sessions as one reason he took up narrating, and he has twice spoken to the crowds at a National Scout Jamboree.

Uniformed leaders who earned Eagle as youths may wear a square knot patch striped in which colors?

Red, white and blue has marked grown-up Eagles since 1934, at first as a ribbon bar, which the embroidered knot patch replaced in 1947.

At which ceremony, also used for lower rank awards, is a new Eagle Scout presented with the medal?

Court of honor is the name of the event, and it comes after the board of review, which is the final requirement for the rank.

Which merit badge was added back to the list of Eagle-required badges in 2014?

Cooking sits among the badges every Eagle must earn with no substitute allowed, alongside First Aid, Camping and Personal Fitness.

To become an Eagle Scout, a Scout must earn Swimming, Hiking or which third merit badge?

Cycling completes the trio, and a Scout who earns more than one of the three can count the extras toward the overall badge total.

Eagle Scouts who enlist in the US armed forces may receive which benefit in recognition of the award?

A higher starting rank is the reward for enlistees, and the award also counts in a candidate's favor for service academy places and ROTC scholarships.

The Eagle Scout award kit holds pins for a mother, a father and which third person?

A mentor pin lets the new Eagle thank someone who guided the way; it was introduced in 2004 and has changed its finish twice since.

Which Eagle Scout ran the oil giant ExxonMobil before becoming US secretary of state in 2017?

Rex Tillerson, whose father was a Boy Scouts executive, also served as the organization's national president from 2010 to 2012.

Which Eagle Scout led the CIA and the Pentagon before being elected president of the Boy Scouts of America?

Robert Gates took the Scouting post after leaving the Obama administration, having earlier headed the National Eagle Scout Association.

Which Supreme Court justice from San Francisco earned Eagle Scout, as did his brother, a federal judge?

Stephen Breyer and his younger brother Charles both reached the rank, and in 2007 the justice received the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Which Eagle Scout played for the New York Knicks before becoming a US senator for New Jersey?

Bill Bradley, a Rhodes Scholar, joined the Order of the Arrow as a Scout and later ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2000.

Which Eagle Scout biologist, a world authority on ants, won two Pulitzer Prizes for his books?

E. O. Wilson was nature director at his Boy Scout summer camp, and he turned from flies to ants when insect pins ran short during the Second World War.

Eagle Scout Paul Siple won a nationwide search in 1928 to sail to Antarctica with which polar explorer?

Richard Byrd took the 19-year-old south on his ship the City of New York; Siple went on to join six Antarctic expeditions and coin the term wind chill.

Which Eagle Scout adventurer made the first solo nonstop balloon flight around the world in 2002?

Steve Fossett made Eagle at 13 and worked a summer as a ranger at Philmont Scout Ranch; the balloon record came on his sixth attempt.

Which Texas billionaire, an Eagle Scout after only 13 months, ran for president as an independent in 1992?

Ross Perot joined the Boy Scouts in his hometown of Texarkana, a few years after taking his first job at the age of eight as a paperboy.

Which Eagle Scout governor of Massachusetts was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988?

Michael Dukakis, born in Brookline to Greek immigrants, lost that election to George H. W. Bush; he also holds the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award.

Eagle Scout Dan Reynolds, born and raised in Las Vegas, is the lead vocalist of which pop rock band?

Imagine Dragons formed in 2008 while Reynolds was a student at Brigham Young University, where the band won the school's battle of the bands.

The cloth Eagle Scout badge debuted for Scouts attending the 1924 World Scout Jamboree in which country?

Denmark hosted that jamboree, and the merit badge sash was created for the same trip, with the new Eagle patch sewn at the top of it.

Which society of Eagle Scouts, founded in San Francisco in 1925, became NESA in 1972?

Knights of Dunamis took its name from the Greek word for strength, and members had to carry out a second service project on top of their Eagle one.

Which merit badge may a Scout earn in place of Environmental Science to meet the Eagle requirements?

Sustainability is the only alternative offered, and a Scout who earns both badges can count the second one toward the electives.

Which Asian country has a national Scout association that also awards an Eagle Scout rank?

Philippines Scouting dropped the Eagle title for local names in 1961, yet it is once again the highest award of the Senior Scout program there.

Where is the Eagle Scout Memorial Fountain, built around sculptures saved from New York's old Penn Station?

Kansas City got the memorial in 1968 because its council had awarded more Eagle badges during the 1960s than any other in the country.

Which Eagle Scout animator, co-creator of The Flintstones, was most proud of his Distinguished Eagle Scout Award?

William Hanna joined the Boy Scouts in Watts, California, in 1922 and stayed active for the rest of his days, serving as a Scoutmaster.

Eagle Scout Jon Heder, later a Scoutmaster himself, played the title character in which 2004 comedy film?

Napoleon Dynamite grew out of Peluca, a short film Heder starred in for his Brigham Young University friend Jared Hess, and it was shot in Preston, Idaho.

Which Eagle Scout, awarded the rank at fourteen, wrote the bestselling Dirk Pitt adventure novels?

Clive Cussler also hunted real shipwrecks: he founded the National Underwater and Marine Agency, named after the fictional one in his books.