2012′s Eagles are the only ones who can wear this 100th Anniversary patch.

For Eagle Scouts and their fans, 2012 was the gift that keeps on giving.

We spent all year celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Arthur Rose Eldred becoming the first Eagle Scout. We got scientific evidence of what I’m calling “the Eagle Scout effect.”

And now, just this morning, comes news that more boys earned Eagle in 2012 than in any year in the award’s history.

A whopping 57,976 new Eagle Scouts joined the ranks last year, surpassing the previous high mark of 56,176 in 2010.

The 2012 total represents a 12.6 percent increase over the size of 2011′s class (51,473).

To me, a record-setting Eagle class is proof that Scouting remains alive and well as we settle into the movement’s second century. And it represents the nationwide impact of nearly 58,000 young men who know what honor, loyalty, and hard work really mean. Not to mention nearly 58,000 Eagle service projects that improved countless communities. The way I see it, the world could use a few more Eagle Scouts.

So here’s to 2012′s Eagle Scouts — and to 2013′s, 2014′s, and so on. Let’s keep that number growing.

The road was twisted, dark and damp, but somewhere, somehow, there was always there to find, the lamp of life to guide you through life’s tricky game of chance.

Heartfelt poetry about overcoming hardships isn’t what you’d expect to hear at an Eagle Scout court of honor. That’s what made Billy Kleinknecht’s ceremony last weekend in Spokane, Wash., so special.

You see, Billy, a newly minted Eagle in Troop 130, was raised by his grandmother, Bonnie Ferrell. She signed Billy up for the Scouting program when he was little. She held his hand through Cub Scouts. She watched him progress and mature through each rank in Boy Scouts. And when he reached the pinnacle of the Scouting program, it was Bonnie who pinned the shiny Eagle Scout medal onto Billy’s chest.

Any Eagle Scout court of honor is special, but Bonnie and Billy’s story turned this one into “one of the most emotional ceremonies I have ever attended,” Tim McCandless, Inland Northwest Council Scout Executive, told me in an e-mail yesterday.

“For the ceremony, his grandmother wrote and read the attached poem which left nary a dry eye in the house,” Tim continues. “I thought that the poem might be valued by Scouting magazine readers. I have forwarded the poem and photos with Bonnie’s permission.”

The print product doesn’t publish poetry, but I do. I’ve pasted the complete poem after the jump. Take a look.  Continue reading »