Kansas Scout Earns All 132 Merit Badges

Merit badges serve as a mark of honor and knowledge for those involved in the Boy Scouts of America.

Still, the Kansas City Star reports that just four percent of all scouts earn the elite rank of Eagle, which requires 21 badges. That makes the accomplishment of 18-year old Curry McWilliams that much more impressive.

The Kansas scout has earned all the merit badges there are to be earned — all 132 of them.

Boy Scout officials don’t encourage every scout to try and achieve so much, so they don’t keep track of how many do. Still, they’re impressed when it happens.

“But we’re all pretty much in awe when somebody comes along who did it,” Bill Steele, director of the National Eagle Scout Association told the Kansas City Star.

ABC News reports that Curry got involved with scouts at age 5, using it as a way to stay grounded as his military family moved from place to place. At each place, he found scouts.

“Some people think that moving pulls you away from ties, but as I would settle in to the new place the Boy Scout community was always something I could get involved with. It helped me readjust,”McWilliams told ABC News.

McWilliams was 15-years old with 60 badges when he made the decision to try for all of them. The honor of doing so, coupled with his being an Eagle Scout, bodes well for his future.

A Baylor University study confirms what many have known for some time. Those who take the Boy Scout oath and stick with it to Eagle Scout tend to end up in positions of leadership.

The oath reads, “On my honor, I will do my best, To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”

Words that can serve as good advice for anyone, no matter how many merit badges one has.

(Photo courtesy of Meritbadge.org)